


The Skies of Pern: Ned Ludd's Final Gambit

by silveradept



Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [22]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Ableism, Classism, Commentary, Consent Issues, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kangaroo Courts, Librarian Stereotypes, Meta, Nonfiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Rape Apologia, Sexism, Stalking, Stereotypes, Swearing, Sympathy-Adjacent Antagonist, Torture, Toxic Masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: A commentary read with excerpts of The Skies of Pern, a novel of the revised Ninth Pass of Pern, part of the Dragonriders of Pern novels.
Relationships: F'lar | Fallarnon/Lessa, F'lessan | Felessan/Tai (Dragonriders of Pern), Tagetarl/Rosheen (Dragonriders of Pern)
Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663699
Kudos: 2





	1. Post-AIVAS Blues

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Director's Cut of meta originally posted at [Slacktiverse](https://slacktiverse.wordpress.com).
> 
> Content notes for each chapter are in their respective posts, and all content notes in the work are in the tags.
> 
> Director's commentary will be rendered _[in a manner like this.]_

Having stopped off to see a short story about how runners might see the world with a romance plot grafted on, we're back to the novel form, at least for a bit.

A wrinkle to the acknowledgements this time around is a very abridged playlist used in the composition of the work, as well as a new scientist added to the thanks that makes me wonder what this story is going to be about.

The introduction returns! And at this point, since we're already post-AIVAS, it no longer has to worry about spoilers. This also has the consequence of making it the most SFnal introduction yet. Yet, it reads very much like a radio serial introduction, full of high praise for the Benden Weyrleaders and devoting a single sentence to the widespread opposition that developed to using the AIVAS files and device.

It also sets us up with questions to keep in mind as we read, to see if the narrative accomplishes its goals:

> Which technologies can be adopted without disrupting the culture of the planet? And how will the dragonriders integrate themselves and their splendid friends into the new Threadfree society?

Well, the truthful answer to the first question is "none," as all new technology is disruptive to culture and society. The second has plenty of potential answers, and I suspect it mostly depends on what they want to do. Let's find out what the narrative thinks, shall we?

**The Skies of Pern: Prologue: Content Notes:**

We're back to the old "Part" style of narration for this work. I will have to find my own break points, then.

Right out of the gate, our comfortable time signatures have changed.

> Crom Mines--5.27.30-Present Pass  
>  Aivas Adjusted Reckoning--2552

Perhaps it is out of custom that they continue to use "Present Pass," but for anyone that believes this is the last go-round, I would expect them to use "Final Pass" or "Ninth Pass," as presumably the AI after being fed all the records it could get its hands on, would have counted and been able to tell everyone they're in the Ninth Pass. Or for them to adopt the epoch calendar that AIVAS provided, and make it something like "5.27.2552 (Ninth Pass 30)" so that the eventual synchronization will have reference points in this transition era.

Basically, I expected Pern to start referring to the Passes in the way one might refer to the dynastic eras or reigns of the emperors of Japan, and they haven't.

In any case, the narrative proper starts with a meteorite strike on one of the prison mines of Crom (CROM) Hold. (Mine work has been noted as a punishment before, but I suspect it is only applied to those who can't buy their way out of punishment from the appropriate justice entity.) Everyone, except for a prisoner by the name of Shankolin, panics at the strike. Shankolin takes the opportunity to escape, and also to tell us that he's been educated in science enough to call the meteorite by its name as he escaped his prison. As Shankolin escapes, his context is made apparent - he's the son of Norist, the leader of the "Abomination" faction that repeatedly tried to sabotage and destroy AIVAS, and his hearing is fine, having recovered over a very long time from the sonic pulse he suffered on his last attempt.

 _[Which is really quite impressive, and not at all how human biology works, if the sonic pulse was enough to cause long-term hearing loss or people to bleed from their ears, as was described when the pulse went off several books ago. Human hair cells in the ears do not regenerate, normally, so any hearing loss that Shankolin suffered should be quite permanent. But, then again, this is the revised Ninth Pass, and therefore, it's entirely possible that in the new canon, the sonic pulse still happened, but it was designed and activated in a way meant to incapacitate and cause pain, but no permanent damage, and Shankolin has been bluffing that he can't hear for all the time that he's been in this mine prison. Which is really hard to do, I have to say, given that the startle reflex and other involuntary tells would probably give him away pretty quickly. And, since they're part of an anti-technology faction, it's unlikely that there would be, say, hearing aids present to use to restore hearing.]_

> Master Norist had been horrified to learn that the Weyrleaders of Pern believed that this disembodied voice could actually instruct them in how to turn the Red Star from its orbit and prevent it from ever swinging close enough to drop the avaricious and hungry Thread.

So far so good. Your leaders believing something that is impossible, based on your understanding of the universe, is often a way of getting someone to take action.

Shankolon does not know this, but he's working on a time limit, because ultimate success has already happened and/or will without him being able to do a thing about it. Once Thread stops falling and no longer falls as it would be predicted to do (which may cut this Pass abnormally short), he's out of leverage. The permanent knowledge, of course, will be when the Tenth Pass fails to materialize, but only time-traveling dragonriders will know that in their lifetimes.

If the narrative wanted to keep Shankolin as a reasonable figure and let us get a glimpse as to how someone can believe logical things that happen to be wrong, then it fails out quickly.

> Thread truly was a menace to bodies and growing things, but the Aivas Abomination had been a more insidious menace to the very minds and hearts of men and women, and from its disembodied words a perfidous treachery has been spread.

Dictionary (.com), an assist, please?

> perfidy: (1) deliberate breach of faith or trust; faithlessness; treachery: (2) an act or instance of faithlessness or treachery. **1585–95; Latin perfidia faithlessness, equivalent to perfid(us) faithless, literally, through (i.e., beyond the limits of) faith (per- per- + fid(ēs) faith + -us adj. suffix) + -ia -y3** (emphasis mine)

Perfidy almost requires an orthodoxy or contract of faith to betray, and I'm not seeing it yet. If the dragonriders are charged with protecting the planet from Thread, then a new entity offering a possible way of doing away with it permanently should be explored as part of due diligence. It would be closer to perfidious if they _didn't_.

_[The commentary to the post suggests that TRADITION itself has become the orthodoxy, with the idea that the current social structure is perfect (to those who benefit from it) and anything that threatens to change or destabilize the social structure should be dismissed out of hand. Which does square with Shankolin's thinking through this section, but it would help is the focus had been put on social change, rather than on whether or not AIVAS is correct about being able to do what he says he can when Shankolin invoked perfidy.]_

> At that time, when everyone was extolling the miracle of this Aivas thing, his father and a few other men of importance had seen the dangers inherent in many of these smooth and tempting promises. As if a mere voice could alter the way a Star moved. Shankolin was firmly of his father's mind. Stars did not change their courses. He agreed that the Weyrleaders were fools, inexplicably eager to destroy the very reason why the great dragons were basic to the preservation of the planet!

Wait. Logic foul, offense. The Weyrleaders are either pursuing a strategy that will disarm them against Thread or they are pursuing a strategy that will make the dragons obsolete, but not both. It is either deadly costly folly or it might work and leave a planet with dragons and no Thread to fight.

Or I'm reading something wrong in this passage and Shankolin is being consistent in belief that pursuing the AIVAS strategy will fail and be destructive to the dragons to the point where they won't be able to fight Thread effectively on its inevitable return. Language is difficult. This is why you have editors.

Additionally, now that Shankolin has seen a meteorite hit, and knows what the word means, I wonder what his position on whether celestial bodies alter courses is. Because meteorites come from somewhere...

_[Nobody says your people have to be consistent in their motivations and ideals, but it helps if you're trying to establish someone who should be taken seriously. Especially given how much of a fanatic Shankolin is, it would give him more weight and seriousness if he were consistently reasoning from a specific set of principles and knowledge, and the authors spent time showing how he could have accepted alternative hypothesis but chose to reject them in favor of the orthodoxy he's been taught._

_It's also kind of weird as fuck for me, throughout all of these books, how scientific principles and ideas keep hanging around, but the scientific method never gets transmitted or accidentally rediscovered by anyone, because it seems like someone, somewhere, would eventually catch on that principles are testable and they should check to see whether they're true or not. Especially with AIVAS around. At the same time, it's the 21st century on Terra and we still have plenty of people who roundly reject science's conclusions in favor of their own beliefs, on matters that science has tested and found a working model about.]_

There's also another reason that I'm going to highlight, because I think it's the real reason Shankolin went along with the attack plot.

> He agreed because he was so close to the end of his journeyman's time. He was eager to prove himself acceptable to his father, to be the one of his sons to receive the secret skills of coloring glass in the glorious shades that only a Master of the Craft could produce: which sand would make molten glass blue, which powder caused the brilliant deep crimson.  
>  So he had volunteered to be one of those to attack the Aivas Abomination and end its domination over the minds of otherwise intelligent men and women.

That sounds like a plausible and very Pernese reason to go along with something that might not have been wise or logical - to please your father and be seen as worthy to have the secrets of your Craft.

As Shankolin escapes, he slips on a stone in a stream and cuts himself fairly well on another from that fall, and bandages himself up as much as he can, continuing the escape. Turns out he had a brush with death in the mines, having smelled a pocket of gas before it collapsed a wall while he was still deafened.

And younger Shankolin was a much different person than this one.

> As a younger man he would never have filched so much as a berry or apple from a neighbor's yard. His circumstances were as much altered now as the tenets of conduct his father had beaten into him. He had a duty to perform, a wrong to right, and a theory he must confirm or forget.

*checks back* Did I miss it somewhere?

_["It", in this case, being the theory to confirm or forget, which is, y'know, the essence of the scientific method - come up with a hypothesis, then perform experiments to see whether the hypothesis holds up or not in different conditions. I don't believe for a moment that Shankolin has the rigor necessary for a valid scientific conclusion, but he can't be the first person to rediscover the method in all of these books. Or to be taught it. Pern is still a very anti-science zone, reflecting the prejudices of the people who first settled here thousands of years later.]_

Secondly, I'm pretty sure that the use of the word "beaten" is deliberately chosen, given what we know of Norist, rather than a question of Unfortunate Implications.

Which is all adding up to making Shankolin a tragic figure, recruited into a cult and pushed to do things he might not have otherwise done because he sought parental approval. (Paging Masterharper Robinton: your callback is here.) I'm not sure the narrative is on board with this characterization, given the way it treated the Abomination faction in previous works, but it's doing a very solid job of it. Maybe if he had been given [clothing that revealed a secret message about getting out of a hate group when it was laundered](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,779446,00.html), he could have made it to Mastery without the toxic mindset.

As things are, Shankolin is basically stealing a little bit of food and some bedding for himself from a cotholder that's not actually in at the moment. He'd like new clothes, but the cotholder has no spare clothes. He does have a boat, and Shankolin is able to travel on the river to a slightly larger hold, where he gets more food and a new suit of clothes before continuing on.

As he continues, we learn that Shankolin blames AIVAS for unspecified things he suffered, he was very disturbed at the kidnapping of Robinton, and his mission, such that it is, is to discover the truth of whether Robinton killed AIVAS or AIVAS killed Robinton, and from there, formulate a plan based on how badly AIVAS had warped Pernese society.

In what I suspect is another knock-on effect from the narrative trying to achieve something else, Shankolin has been repeatedly portrayed as a person who is drawing correct conclusions from bad data.

> He called to mind those whom he knew had been seriously disturbed by the so-called improvements promulgated by Aivas. By now, eleven turns since the Abomination had terminated, some right-minded thinking folk would realize the Red Star had not changed course simply because three old engines had blown up in a crack on its surface! Especially when Thread continued to fall on the planet--as indeed it **should** , to be sure that all Pern was united against the menace of its return, century after century.

The narrative is relying far too much on us knowing and remembering from previous books data that was only really available to Mastercrafters, Harpers, and dragonriders. Jaxom may be the only person on the planet with the complete truth of how the Threadfree world came into existence (and the proof that it's going to turn out okay). Jaxom has reasons not to spoil the future. The dragonriders and Harpers are doing their damndest to tell everyone that this is the last Pass, but the evidence of Thread is still there and they're going to have to ride it out. And the average person on the planet probably doesn't understand the raw destructive power of the fusion engines detonated and the fact that the Red "Star" isn't a star at all, but a planet being thrown from its orbit. We know what's going on, but everyone else is quite rightly demanding the extraordinary proof for the extraordinary claims being made.

Equally as importantly, Shankolin and others that we are about to meet keep pointing out that there are social and cultural consequences to everything that AIVAS did and introduced. Mechanization displaces the guild system and will likely result in less workers needed to turn out objects and make their living from it. It might also improve farming yields so that not everyone has to be a subsistence farmer if they're not part of a guild, a lord, or a dragonrider. A lack of Thread to fight leaves dragonriders and Lords alike without a unifying threat to devote their time and energy toward. Which could mean each of them turning on each other and struggling for control and resources.There's no actual reason for the system as it exists to move forward in its present form past the endpoint of Thread. Jaxom has already set in motion the end of Pernese society as we know it, and all the people pushing AIVAS's improvements are trying to hasten that change. Stable, traditional society is going to be the most appealing option for a lot of people (privileged by their position in it).

The author has had several shots at thinking through the consequences of these actions. So far, the results have been lackluster. Maybe this time we can get a good look at it?

_[Of course not. This is Pern, after all. It avoids looking at consequences like this as if it were Thread falling, and in the later books, that avoidance kicks up even more.]_

We'll pick up next week with more of the prologue, as several shadowy figures discuss tradition (TRADITION!) and the ways in which the machine mangled it all.


	2. A Meeting of Shadows

Last time, a meteorite crashed into a prison mine, and the son of the leader of the Abomination faction escaped. Even though AIVAS has been off for quite a while, the ripples of its actions are still being felt and fought by those that aren't convinced of their virtues. 

**The Skies of Pern: Prologue: Content Notes:**

This segment gives us a new time stamp: **At a Gather - 6.15.30** , which does not have the AIVAS-adjusted time. Given that this is a gathering of people who are less than enthused about the things that AIVAS brought forth, it makes sense to go with the traditional time marker. (What I want to see is the time marker shift back and forth depending on the view of the viewpoint character. I will likely be disappointed.) _[Yep, you will.]_

Three unnamed characters open this segment by complaining about the reworking of the calendars based on AIVAS data, which shortened a Pass by ten Turns. They're kind of willing to let it go, because Robinton gave his stamp to it, but they're definitely not fans of the legacy of AIVAS.

> "Pushing things on us whether we want 'improvements' or not," First said slowly, eyeing her [a fourth that has joined them in the last paragraph] in what illumination dimly reached their side table. He saw a thin woman, with an unattractive face, a pinched mouth, a recessive lower jaw, and huge eyes that glowed with an inner anger or resentment.

Because pretty women aren't allowed to have heterodox ideas. (At least not without consequences, as Kylara, Avril, and Thella will point out to you.)

What distinguishes this meeting from any other gripe session is the introduction of a fifth person with a deep, yet inflectionless voice that eventually draws in two more people to the table, where they demonstrate their various factions. First feels AIVAS turned itself off too early, Third is poking fun at the others for being so serious about things that have improved their lives, and Fifth believes there's nothing good that comes from AIVAS, and makes the point in a way that only makes sense on Pern.

> "Surgery!" In that expressive deep voice the three syllables were drawn out as if he spoke of something immoral.  
>  "Surgery?" Sixth frowned. "What's that?"  
>  "Ways of mucking inside a body," First replied, lowering his own voice to match Fifth's.  
>  Sixth shuddered. "Mind you, sometimes we gotta cut a foal out of its dam or it strangles." When the others regarded him suspiciously, he added, "Only a very well-bred foal we can't afford to lose. And I saw the healer once remove a pendix. Woman would have died, he said. She didn't feel a thing."  
>  " 'She didn't feel a thing,' " Fifth repeated, investing that statement with sinister import.  
>  "The healer could have done anything else he liked," Fourth said in a shocked whisper.  
>  Second dismissed that with a grunt. "Didn't do her any harm and she's still alive and a good worker."

The banter continues, and it seems like most of the people in the group resent that they weren't consulted on the changes and it's not easily verifiable that the improvements will improve. They're suffering a disruption that's not of their own making and that they can't control. Third claims that Menolly said to wait and go slowly, which I can see her doing, not because she's cautious about the technology, but because she recognizes the upheaval that happens when you go full bore on mechanization and industrialization.

Fifth is firmly on the idea that traditional life is the best, which Third mocks, but all of them at the table seem to agree that while hurting people is a bad idea, destroying or removing objects they consider harmful, or taking what they feel is theirs, rather than having to wait in line behind dragonriders, Lords, and Crafters, is an idea they can get behind. What ends up sealing the bargain for everyone is the rumor that AIVAS might have killed Robinton before terminating itself, and the subsequent idea that AIVAS might not have had the best interests of actual humans at heart.

I present to you the Luddites of Pern.

The initial group of twenty at this Gather re-forms the Abomination faction themselves and subsequently gather strength and numbers by promising to give voice to the objections brought on by the new technology and by spreading the rumor that AIVAS killed Robinton, transforming Robinton's natural charm and beloved-by-all status into a weapon for recruitment. Individual acts of sabotage mostly go unnoticed, but then they escalate to the point where the Craftmasters notice, and then the Craftmasters start conferencing, and it's a Master Harper, Mekelroy, known as "Pinch" (suggesting the same role as Nip and Tuck, spymaster for Sebell) who puts it all together and figures out the pattern.

And that's where the prologue stops, and the viewpoint character for the beginning of Part One is F'lessan, so whatever information and data Pinch has collected will only be for the appropriate Masters' ears and not ours. I realize this is a storytelling device, but the way it usually goes is that you cut away from the very important discovery to the innocent character that is about to begin the adventure they do not actually know is coming. Gollum loses the One Ring, and we go to the Shire to see Bilbo. The prince becomes The Beast, and we go to the sleepy village in rural France where Belle is being her usual self to the town's residents. Princess Leia is captured, and we cut away to Luke Skywalker. F'lessan does not, in any way, qualify as an innocent unaware of adventure.

Plus, when you do that, it seems like the thing to do to your readers is to have Pinch utter something cryptic that won't be explained to the reader until a lot later. But there aren't any prophecies, and we've spent all this time with the people who would otherwise be mysterious learning their motivations and decisions. Maybe not their identities, which I suppose makes for some mystery, but I'm not entirely sure what narrative purpose this prologue serves. It's kind of like an extended teaser for the book itself. Maybe we would have wanted to stay with the villains for a little longer and get some characterization or ideological diversity in their ranks.

In any case, actual content starts next time?

_[Doing Director's Commentary in this day and time is beautiful and terrible all at the same time, and I hope someone gets to riff on Pern later on in life in their own cultural contexts, too, as well as make a million fix-its. But, in this particular case, talking about an honest-to-goodness conspiracy in the time of weaponized misinformation, disinformation, and plenty of people who believe and peddle such things, like QAnon, InfoWars, and the rest, including people in the government, is certainly a thing. They've become mixed in with people who have a legitimate grief about societal change that seems to only really be benefiting the wealthy and not them. There are some in that class who seem to recognize the amount of shift they're introducing into the population and are counseling slowness, since they can't seem to counsel information and the wide distribution of knowledge so that people can better themselves and possibly make a more egalitarian society. In that gap between a democratic (or libetarian) society as the Ancients intended and the interests that want to keep things the way they are and profit off them and the continued exploitation of others, this conspiracy will find strength and likely a bunch of people they can convince to do their bidding by disguising it as something that the disaffected population would do anyway, out of fear or anger about their continued exploitation. Figuring out how to separate the Luddites, who are concerned about their way of life disappearing through technology and mechanization, from those looking to exploit them, is a difficult task on Pern, much like trying to separate the people who are afraid of their livelihoods being eaten by technology from the rich and the opportunistic who want to use that fear to get those people to fight others, to be racists and xenophobes and the people who benefit so much from a white supremacist system that they don't want it to change, because that might hurt them, even if they don't believe in conscious racism. A lot of the people who are doing these actions are being manipulated and exploited by people with bad intentions, but they think they're doing good things, and it's a pretty clear failure of the Harpers that this conspiracy has anywhere to take root at all.]_


	3. Archive Dive, Dinner

Last time, we finished the extended look at villains and watched the rebirth of the Luddites of Pern. Having established there are antagonists, it's off to see Our Hero(es).

**The Skies of Pern: Part 1, Segment 1: Content Notes: Sexist stereotyping, implications of non-consent**

This Part is entitled "Turnover," a term that we be only recently been introduced to as the name of the celebration of moving from one Turn to the next. The celebration itself predates the use of the term, but this seems to be another one of those "has always been here" things.

Our time stamp is "1.1.31 Present Pass Aivas--Aivas Adjusted Turn 2253" which seems to have a duplication in it that might be a bad electronic book conversion.

In any case, it's still dual timekeeping, even with F'lessan holed up in a reading room with all sorts of AIVAS data. What's weird to him is that he's not alone in the reading room. There's a Monaco Bay green rider studying charts.

> Why wasn't the girl, especially a green rider, out dancing? Why wasn't **he**? He grimaced. He was still trying to overcome the carelessly lustful reputation that he had earned early in this Pass. Not that he was any different from many bronze and brown riders. "Just more noticeable," Mirrim had told him in her candid fashion. Mirrim had astonished everyone, including herself, when she had Impressed green Path at a Benden Weyr Hatching. Being T'gellan's Weyrmate had mellowed her natural assertiveness, but she never spared him her blunt opinions.

_[Ah, hello there, Cocowhat.]_

Mostly on the idea that T'gellan blunted Mirrim. Or that Mirrim needed blunting. But also the part where F'lessan is somehow getting called out for behavior that isn't any different than his peers. Absolutely nobody has called the dragonriders out before this about their lusty behavior. And plenty of the other segments of Pern have been getting it on with frequency with others, too, so they don't really have a leg to stand on.

If they're commenting because it's the son of the Weyrleaders and he's supposed to be setting a better example...well, then, the only thing I can do is laugh at that, because we've spent several books by now showing how the bar is so terribly low.

_[It's never actually made clear why the Son of the Benden Weyleaders is trying to reform his image into something other than a bronze rider stereotype. As best as I can tell, there's no downside to being known as someone who's lusty and virile and always up for sex in dragonrider culture. It might mean the Holders and Crafters keep a closer eye on their women when he's around, but that's proabbly seen as a good thing for most bronze riders, because it creates a "challenge" for them to get what they want. And yes, describing bronze rider culture as being the same as the pick-up artist culture is both deliberate and warranted, even though at the time of the writing, pick-up artists weren't nearly as part of the mainstream as they would become.]_

F'lessan, while he watches the other rider study planetary charts, reflects on the new post-Thread reality. Those who came from halls or crafts, he supposes, will be able to go back to them, but the ones who are born and raised in the Weyr will have to figure something else out when the tithes stop.

F'lessan, of course, has Honshu to fall back on, so he doesn't have to really worry about it. We get to find out that Impression made F'lessan much less of a class-ditcher, and that having Honshu to restore has been even better at keeping discipline. And that F'lessan is in the archives at Turnover because he's looking for a very specific thing, and he wanted to find it without any other person knowing what he was looking at. We also find that F'lessan is definitely weyrbred in that he doesn't think of the Weyrleaders as his parents, even though they give him birthday, Impression Day, and Turnover gifts every year, and that he finds hold kids to be extremely uptight.

He is different that he doesn't really want to succeed the current Weyrleader and wishes for him to ride out the final turn. Or for the Benden Weyrleaders to announce their retirement. Which could be a nice way of saying, "yes, there is an incest taboo on Pern, even if nobody voices it." I still suspect that Weyr naming conventions and fostering practices are specifically meant so that you don't end up in a situation where a person might be under the influence of their dragon and violating close relationships.

Sucks to be him that there's a green rider in the same room. Or rather, that's already in the room that F'lessan wants to enter, but worries that he'll break the other rider's concentration by doing so. Since there's nothing to do right now but observe, we are treated to a description of the green rider, before she realizes she's being observed and turns to stare at him. Realizing he's been found out, F'lessan goes in and introduces himself to Tai, the green rider, and we get more metaphorical description to complement the workmanlike physical one.

> She looked embarrassed, dropping her eyes as soon as their hands had clasped politely. Her handshake was firm, if brisk almost to the point of rudeness, and he could feel some odd ridges, scars on the back of her hand and on her forefinger. She wasn't pretty, she didn't act sensual, the way some green riders did, and she was only half a head shorter than he was. She wasn't **too** thin, but the lack of flesh on her bones gave her a slightly boyish appearance.

Ah, that explains why the first physical description didn't linger on anything - Tai is not supposed to be seen as sexy, and she's also not supposed to be seen as villainous, since she isn't putting on the attitude that she is sexy. She's a Wholesome Green Rider, cut from Mirrim's pattern, I suspect. This makes her a candidate for Designated Protagonist, so we'll probably see more of her as time goes by.

After introducing himself and apologizing for intruding, F'lessan gets to his actual business - trying to find a connection between Stev Kimmer and Kenjo Fusaiyuki, since there are "SK" carved or etched on several of the surfaces of Honshu, and Stev was the only person that fits the initials that isn't marked as having gone north. Thanks to Rescue Run, we know the terrible connection between Kimmer and the Fusaiyukis, but that data would be lost to AIVAS. F'lessan is hoping to find samples of Stev's handwriting to match to the initials carved, so that he can have a more complete history of Honshu. He already knows that the Fusaiyuki clan did not go north, even after repeated invitations to do so, and his explorations are essentially finding the aftermath of the Rescue Run story, when everyone left in a hurry, trying to piece together what had happened, and admiring how self-sufficient Honshu is.

F'lessan's search comes up empty, and in his hope for Tai's search to go better, he startles her. She drops the book in her hands, and F'lessan is able to save it before it splats on the ground. He gets a much better look at Tai's hands and recognizes signs of injury. Tai dismisses it as nothing, but F'lessan insists in applying numbweed (which he has a small stash of on his person) because infections in the South are "peculiar" and can show up even in well-tended wounds. While they wait, F'lessan asks Tai about why she's researching the Ghosts, having divined her purpose by looking at the materials she was staring at.

From the context we get, the Ghost Showers tend to happen on seven-Turn cycles where they are extremely bright in the sky in the north and completely invisible in the south. After F'lessan puts away Tai's books, he drops a sigh about how his question may not have an answer at all, and Tai picks up the bait, and demonstrates she was a student at the Landing school. Her family was killed exploring the South, and she was apprenticed to Master Wansor as essentially an audio descriptor and reader to him. Because he liked her voice, a sentiment that F'lessan confirms. Before, that is, she Impressed her green, Zaranth.

Tai then suggests that F'lessan examine the case where the original charter of Pern is for his handwriting sample, since Kimmer would have had to sign it somewhere. This is one recovered from Fort Hold during the AIVAS years, and so I think we're supposed to assume the Charter copy that Robinton described as being between thick panes of glass at the Harper Hall is a different copy, but there are enough time disparities at this point that it could be more retcon at work to have the original here at Landing, discovered by using an AIVAS-supplied combination instead of being between found at the Harper Hall. Make up your own conclusions, they're probably equally valid.

_[Nevermind the improbability of any document surviving in its original form for more than two thousand years, unless it were chiseled into rock or some other incredibly non-reactive medium, and the extra improbability of multiple copes from that time surviving. (It's not impossible, of course, because the universe makes improbably look commonplace on the regular, but it's highly improbable.) And also, we can loop in the retcon of how Ninth Pass 2.0 and other later-published, if earlier chronologically, works have always had the original Charter documents to refer to for founding and maintaining the society that came from them._

_Furthermore, what's with Stev carving his initials into everything at Honshu? Like, I can understand it as a way of subtly reinforcing his claim on everything and everyone that was there, but it seems like doing it as much as he apparently has suggests some other thing at work. Then again, this is Stev Kimmer, who as of the events of Rescue Run has already committed a lot of terrible acts and seems to have a sociopathic outlook on life, so what doesn't make sense to me, or is something I can guess at, might have been patently obvious to him.]_

Tai's suggestion is fruitful, and F'lessan picks her up and spins her a bit in his exuberance, before remembering that she was pretty cool to him before and that he might not want to get handsy, even in a friendly way. F'lessan can't help but find Tai kind of cute, though.

> She had a very nice smile, he thought, as the corners of her wide mouth curved up, showing her teeth, white and even, accented by a tanned complexion that was as much heredity as exposure to southern sun.  
>  [...]  
>  Her smile deepened, causing two dimples to appear in her cheeks. He didn't know any girls with dimples.

But we get a glimpse, thanks to dragon gossip, of Tai's main motivation in life.

> **You are a bronze rider and you are F'lessan and she's shy,** Golanth said. **Zaranth says she wants to make something of herself for After. She never wants to be beholden to anyone else ever.  
>  Like all dragonriders,** F'lessan is with considerable irony.  
>  **Not even to other dragonriders,** Golanth added, slightly offended by Tai's utter independence.

Cut from Mirrim's cloth _indeed._ No bet on whether she ends up happily partnered by the end. Or whether the possible tragic reasons why she wants to be independent are taken seriously and worked through. _[By this time, with this many books complete, it's screamingly obvious how this is going to end up, and yes, the Son of the Benden Weyrleader is going to partner with Tai. And no, he's not going to be particularly considerate of her when he does it, proving that he's cut from the same cloth as his father and uncle after all. Such a joy to look forward to.]_

After F'lessan tells her about his mission to document the history of Honshu, they both lock up the archives, Tai enabling an alarm so that the archives would stay protected against accidents. They both admit to being hungry, and F'lessan, now charmed by Tai, offers to race her to the food while he thinks about whether she'd like to dance with him, since she's the right height for him. She accepts in deed, but we find out why Tai is studying at odd hours and how much she already knows about F'lessan.

> Despite all the tales she had heard from Mirrim about the bronze rider--including dire warnings about his fecklessness--he had acted considerately and courteously toward her in the library. She'd been surprised that he appeared to know his way around the shelves. He had certainly prevented her from getting in trouble with Master Esselin, who had his own ideas about what dragonriders should study. Especially green female riders. After Tai's first distressing encounter with the pompous Archivist, Mirrim had comforted her with a tale of how nasty Esselin had once been to her, in the early days of the discoveries at Landing, before Aivas was discovered, and how MasterHarper Robinton himself had acted on Mirrim's behalf. The fussbudget was the main reason Tai tried to pick unusual hours at the library: times when she wouldn't have to deal with the persnickety old man.

Ah, sexism, still alive and well and living gloriously on Pern. Not to mention that Esselin is essentially a librarian stereotype, back in the days on Terra when librarians were presumed to be men who were insufficiently masculine to succeed at any other profession. (Which made them fussy and effeminate. The part about being very concerned with making sure only appropriate people were using the library is just a general old librarian stereotype. _[Also, the Harper Archivists, with the exception of Verilan, who won't be old enough to have developed the stereotype, are all also seen as fussy men with exacting standards about a lot of things, so that's also playing into the stereotype.]_ )

I do, however, like the idea of Mirrim starting and maintaining a whisper network, since I'm fairly certain any woman who tried to stand up and name names about the assaults she's suffered would be buried under the weight of Patriarchy bright to bear on her.

Tai and F'lessan's race slows slightly as they pass the room where AIVAS was, before coming to an abrupt halt because there's a couple obliviously making out in their path, and they're positioned right around a corner. F'lessan catches Tai when she runs into him and holds her no longer than needed to get her balance back, and the two creep around the kissing and run off to the food together. F'lessan guides Tai to the tables, haggles with a wine merchant about the price of his Benden (to no avail), then grumbles and passes over his three marks. Pour, toast ("Safe skies!") and drink, while Tai quietly boggles at the ease in which F'lessan hands over the three marks for the wineskin. Also, food.

And Tai telling us that green dragonriders, including her, are getting into the express shipping game as a side job from their duties at Weyr or other contracts (like research) they are working on. Sean would be so annoyed at his descendants.

F'lessan continues to make small talk at Tai and get information from her, asking about her hand, the dolphins, what she's doing in the archives (which leads to a shared thing about how Esselin hates that F'lessan is in Honshu), and so forth.

One of the subjects is touchy for Tai.

> "Are you weyred along the coast or inland?"  
>  Tai tried not to freeze at the question: bronze riders with an eye to mating with Zaranth the next time she was "ripe" always wanted to know where she could be found. Zaranth wasn't even close to her cycle. "Coast," she replied quickly. Almost too quickly.

After F'lessan asks about dolphins instead of dragons,

> She made herself relax. She was being overly suspicious.

I don't think that's overly suspicious, Tai. That sounds like experience talking about what a bronze rider is interested in from a green. And the implications of how Tai phrased it sounds like those bronze riders don't particularly care for Tai's consent in the matter while their bronzes mate with Zaranth. And the use of the word "ripe" only reinforces that idea. The stereotypes about green riders that we've been hearing all along still have some pretty good force to them - even F'lessan was buying into them when he thought of Tai as not being particularly sensual.

It's no coincidence that Tai and Mirrim are good friends, since they're both giving two middle fingers to the stereotype of the sex-obsessed green rider. And yet, they and Debera are also the only greens we've seen given significant amounts of screen time and drilling into their motivations. Because they're not like all the other girls and boys who ride greens, I guess? Still, even if 99 green riders would willingly sleep with any bronze that came knocking, nobody gets to assume the 100th will, too, and so they should have to ask every time, not that they do.

And I realize this is 2018 me making critique in a realm where there's a lot more frank sex talk and a tradition of consent, nascent that it may be, but Pern is still terrible about it. _[2020 isn't that much better about it, so there's still more than enough space for critique. The excuse of "products of their time" has less and less weight to it as people discover that people of that time were engaging with the material and not replicating stereotypes and bad ideas. Pern is a world built around the idea of male power, even if it allows for the existence of people who can challenge that here and there. In doing so, though, it reinforces the terrible trope of the Exceptional Woman. The upcoming series set in the Second Interval and Third Pass going all-in hard on that idea, to the detriment of everyone subjected to it.]_

As we continue through the small talk, there are yet more hints dropped that Tai is not okay.

> She knew he was teasing her; she knew she was often too solemn. Even Mirrim said she shouldn't be quite so conscientious, but that was just how she was. She just didn't know how to respond to levity.

Yet the narrative is giving plenty of space to how this F'lessan is not behaving at all like how Mirrim described him.

> He wasn't at all what she'd expected based on Mirrim's tales of some of his pranks at Benden Weyr. Well, that had been Turns ago, before he'd Impressed. He did have a serious side to his nature, along with that most amazing sparkle in his eyes. She should be wary of such a sparkle. Mirrim had said he had been very much a bronze rider! Maybe she should slip away while she had a chance. But that seemed very discourteous. She had barely touched the second glass he'd poured.

This sounds very much like someone who is trying to fight her instincts about someone. Just because he doesn't match the picture in your head doesn't mean he's still not dangerous. But Tai has been socialized life a lot of women on Terra that her leaving now, and trusting those instincts, would cause social problems to come down on her. So she's hoping that F'lessan doesn't revert to a bronze dragonrider. In a horror movie, the audience is screaming at her to run from this seemingly charming person, because he's going to be a murderer.

_[The narrative wants us to give cookies, or at least the benefit of the doubt, to the Son of the Benden Weyrleaders, that he's Not Like Other Men, in the same way that Tai and Mirrim are Not Like Other Women. All it really does, as the comments to the original point out, is highlight how Bad and Terrible everyone else is, that we're being deliberately shown someone who's Not Like That and told they're a good person to root for. By themselves, though, they won't be able to achieve systemic change, which is the real goal.]_

The Harpers take up their instruments again as both Tai and F'lessan go through seconds, which is something that shows us Tai has not been okay for a very long time.

> He had no trouble putting away his second helping of Turnover food. Nor did she, but then, her parents had raised her to "eat what's on your plate and be thankful." She took a hasty sip of the white Benden; she hadn't thought of her family recently. Her life with them had been so different from the one she now had--even before she had Impressed Zaranth. Zaranth--and Monaco Weyr--was her family now, and closer to her than she had ever been to her bloodkin.

Tai grew up poor, then, like most of the people on Pern that the narrative has been studiously avoiding. Like most of the people in Latin Christendom, or the Known World of many re-enactors of the time period of the Medium Aevum. And you know what? _Growing up poor affects you both physiologically and psychologically_. It seems to me that Tai is exhibiting signs of being a person who grew up with scarcity still adjusting to having plenty, but also trying to figure out which of the old rules still apply and what new rules need to be learned.

Before we can go off into reminiscence and see how terrible Tai's home life was, F'lessan starts singing along to the ballads. Well, if you call it singing. F'lessan can't carry a tune in a bucket, but he sings loudly anyway. Tai, on the other hand, can actually sing a little.

> His merry eyes caught hers, and from the mischief in them, she suddenly realized that he knew very well how badly he sang and didn't care. That he was willing to show such a defect in a culture that apotheosized music, and certainly encouraged vocal talents, astonished her. Mirrim might criticize his fickleness and breezy attitudes to weyrmates, but why hadn't she mentioned his flawed voice?  
>  [...the song finishes...]  
>  "Why do you sing, when you know you can't?" she demanded in a low voice.  
>  "Because I do know all the words," he replied, not at all abashed.

Because voices and music are vitally important to Harpers and nobody else. The important songs are educational, and, as F'lessan points out, if you know the words, then you have learned what you are supposed to learn. Now, it certainly helps that F'lessan is the son of the Weyrleaders and a man, so he's not going to be expected to demonstrate a fine singing voice or musical talent to catch himself a good husband. Privilege matters in this case, and so F'lessan can have a tin ear and a terrible voice for singing.

Before we can get to the humanizing Tai part, since we've spent so long on doing it to F'lessan, Mirrim and T'gellan start heading Tai and F'lessan's way. Tai panics at how the situation might be interpreted by Mirrim and spirits off, keeping her wineglass. Zaranth chides her about it, but otherwise helps make sure that F'lessan can't find her again.

At the end of the concert, she hears far too much glass crashing for her liking and his to investigate. Cute cutaway to Benden Weyr, and a good point for us to stop.

I'm going to point out here that Tai makes an excellent candidate for the cutaway technique I talked about in the previous post - we don't know a lot about her, she's pretty low on the dragonrider hierarchy, and she's already branching out into new fields. She be a great character to be unaware of the journey she's about to take. Why did we stick with F'lessan instead?


	4. An Attempt At Calm

Last time, F'lessan went archive diving to try and confirm the graffiti in parts of Honshu Hold were Stev Kimmer's, and met Tai, a green rider who gives off signals that she has a very traumatic life, even with a dragon. Tai went to investigate something unknown, but the narrative instead chooses to send us to Benden.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 1, Segments 2 and 3: Content Notes: Classism**

[Benden Weyr, 1.1.31]

We continue to use the Pern-specific time frame for the subsequent segment, which makes us wonder why we're including the AIVAS time at all. _[Then again, since Toric is definitely sympathetic to the anti-AIVAS faction, it might be that we're actually sticking to the time marker being an indication of the sympathies of at least one of the viewpoint character of that segment.]_

It's Lessa we start with in this segment, arriving with hot pastries in hand to collect the Benden Weyrleader and get them to bed while the revels continue. It being Benden, of course, it's cold. And the two of them are not nearly as young as they used to be - the Benden Weyrleader is sixty-three, after all. So the quiet is appreciated by Lessa, at least.

Lessa is also trying to get the Benden Weyrleader to think about his upcoming retirement. "After" is apparently the preferred term, and while the focus right now is on closing out the final Pass, Lessa is trying to get her mate to heed the same advice he's giving the younger riders about learning something else to do with their time and dragons.

> The night cold was nothing to the fear that surged through her, making her heart race at the brief trails of fire in the north. Then she was disgusted with her primitive reaction to what she now knew were meteorites burning up in the atmosphere. As a child she'd believed her nurse--that those flares across a night sky were the Ghost Dragons of the First Pass.

That answers that question about what the Ghosts are - they're meteors, and I'm chalking that up to the author not knowing the difference rather than an AI teaching people improperly. _[(Because a meteorite is something that has impacted on the surface. Until then, they're meteors.]_

Given what happened in Beyond Between, however, it's entirely possible that those might be the ghosts of dragons and riders who were caught in terrible accidents and that Marco hasn't shuffled on to their final resting places. Because I'm sure that accidents like the one that claimed Moreta still happen to this day.

Lessa remarks on the increased prevalence of meteors this time around, and her mate assures her that while there are more, none of them are necessarily going to touch down on the planet, which would happily give the "Abominators" grist for their own philosophies. None will touch down, of course, other than the one that already did.

Lessa pegs the Luddite faction as responsible for the uptick in vandalism and robbery, based on the fact that they're not attacking indiscriminately, but only against recently developed innovations and the components needed for them. She thought they'd gotten them all to the islands or the mines, but the reader and the Weyrleader knows and tells about the one meteorite smashing a prison where one person escaped. And points out there are more than enough people with grudges or mischief-making mindsets that they'll sign on to whatever cause gives them cover.

Lessa also gives her mate a privilege check about the introduction of new technology.

> "We just have to speed up the education process to produce the **necessary** improvements that will reduce drudgery After."  
>  "I don't approve of life being made too easy," F'lar remarked.  
>  "You were never a drudge," she said caustically, reminding him of her ten Turns as one.  
>  "Don't forget that this Weyr was scarcely luxurious until Thread started falling again."  
>  "How could I?" She grinned at him, her eyes alight with laughter.

...no.

While her thirty-five Turns of luxury have been good at softening the edges of it, I think "caustically" is several orders of magnitude too nice for what Lessa would be giving her mate, and not letting him dodge acknowledging that even the poorest dragonrider had it way, way better than a kitchen drudge anywhere still has it. Or even a Lady Holder, really. I think this would be a button that Lessa's mate should know better than to push.

_[Even with time away from it, I would expect mistreatment of drudges to be a major trauma trigger for Lessa, because of the time and abuse that she suffered while she was in hiding. And while it's a fairy tale convention that there aren't any scars that linger after the rightful king or queen come back to rule, the reality is that ten years of abuse won't easily be erased, even if there's relative luxury afterward. Not to mention that Tai is mentioned as still carrying the scars of her childhood with her earlier (even though they're ultimately going to be dismissed in favor of the Son of the Benden Weyrleader getting what he wants.) This is the sort of thing that should have the Benden Weyrleader sleeping outside for the night, at the very least.]_

The two also talk about how new surgery and medicine is still touch and go in terms of public acceptance, before Lessa points out that young riders have no trouble settling in to becoming shipping magnates, because they don't consider it beneath their dignity (Oh, how Sean is spinning in his grave), but the older riders don't seem inclined to lift a finger to help anyone out, not even the herders on Southern that could use a dragon to keep the big cats away, and they should know by now that retirement is not just putting up a house and picking fruit all day.

Which gets Lessa fretting a touch about everyone's age - and whether Ramoth will continue to mate and clutch until the end of the Pass. Reassurances all around follow, but Lessa still wants her mate to be thinking about After even as they get through the duties of now. Even as they go through remembering the losses of people that also, currently, is inevitable with age.

They also have to discuss the possibility of a woman coming into being full Holder, rather than just consort. Lady Marella has essentially been regent for Sangel, and she is putting forward her daughter, Janissian, to be fully confirmed by the Council, which would be their first ever.

Thella is probably furious from the afterlife, having missed a council that would consider women in the position by a decade or two. It certainly seems like now is a good time, though, given that there is already the Big Change of After looming on everyone's mind.

_[The comments point out that the Hold that bears Emily Boll's namesake apparently has a tradition of women Holders, so it's not actually the first woman Holder being elected. And the idea of Jamissian being put forward as the first gets blown up anyway, as in the Third Pass books, we have Lady Nerra, who is very obviously confirmed by the Conclave to be Lord of Crom. So there's a lot of later works that retcon the earlier ones, as time goes on and details get changed or because the authors have recognized shifting winds in their audience and want to provide a work that doesn't offend their sensibilities for being backward-looking. It creates a mess without a framework that would essentially allow "well, they thought so at the time, but that was because Records get lost, and people become legends, and there's always a suppression of information campaign every so often, so if something turns out not to be true, blame it on bad scholarship."]_

A toast to absent friends and angry dragon trumpeting round out this sequence, and we skip off to Southern Hold, because we apparently need to see more of Toric.

Hung-over Toric getting news about someone he grudgingly respects arriving. There's enough of how Toric hates everyone for what they've done to him and his annoyance that others are succeeding far better than him to cover some pages, and for him to irritably try to kick his son, Besic, when Besic tweaks him about how his greed got the better of him.

And then the actual talk with said person, where we find out that Toric has not stopped his scheming, probably because of how strongly he was had the last time we saw him. And, in case we are new to the series, we have to establish him as someone we do not like, based on what we've seen so far.

> Toric did not approve of the publicity regarding the Charter, a document so old that it should be regarded as an artifact, rather than guidance for this planet's needs--not twenty-five hundred Turns after it had been promulgated. And harpers were holding "discussion groups" to be sure children and drudges could recite it by rote. There were a few provisions that he would like to see quietly annulled and the clauses that named the perquisites of major landholders extended. He would live to see the last day of this Pass, and he certainly intended to exert his not-so-small influence when the Charter was reviewed--After--and suitably altered once dragonriders were no longer needed. Toric had endured many boring hours to be sure no one in the Council slipped in any more surprises on him. He was developing a few surprises of his own.

Toric still doesn't really understand the true power structure on Pern. His ego is too big to let him understand why he got beaten, and why he will likely lose again. _[That said, looking at the aftermath, wreckage, and attempts right up to the end of trying to hold on to power, even after he'd been voted out of office, of the shameful and destructive reign of the United States Administrator from 2016-2020, Toric's designs on the Charter and trying to get his way done through altering the document to benefit himself seem a lot less like outrageous tactics and more like standard operating procedure for one of the two major political parties of the United States. Weirdly, I almost think the Lords are better-positioned to make sure Toric doesn't get anything, because they're **also** autocrats looking out for themselves and are unlikely to approve any change that would give any one of them, or any group of them, more power than any other. (Plus, the dragonriders will happily interfere when needed, whether directly or through the Chair, Lytol.)]_

There's a little bit about how the Harpers are going to be offering printed copies of texts for people to read, which seems very much at odds with their mission as it has been conceived to this point. Mostly because the press and widespread literacy were things involved in breaking the Catholic Church's monopoly over Latin Christendom, and it seems very likely that the Harper monopoly on interpretation will be similarly broken. If, however, we're supposed to assume that AIVAS gave the Harpers their own history, and their origins as educators and the Teachers' College, then widespread literacy and distribution of texts is exactly in their remit. I just can't see Sebell or any other Harper really truly giving up the power they've had so far to shape minds through education and song.

Everyone heads down for the Harper Report at the new Turn, at which point we get a nice example of how much Toric hates the personnel around him and yet can't actually fault them for any sort of dereliction of duty.

> The Harper, Sintary, had been suggested by Robinton himself as suitable for the position of Master Harper for Southern. Robinton had been one of the few northerners whom Toric had respected, so he had not appealed the appointment. But he had come to regret the decision, for Sintary was a subtle and stubborn man who took his position as Harper so seriously that he had agreed to no changes even when Toric had suggested several minor alterations to the traditional teaching. The old Harper was very popular, with a dry sense of humor and an ability to improvise lyrics about local incidents that made him a very difficult man to discredit. Toric had tried; he kept hoping that an opportunity might yet arise and he could indisputably be able to send Sintary away.  
>  [...Toric gives a barely-there introduction of Sintary...]  
>  Toric enjoyed giving subtle jabs, especially to harpers and dragonriders. And where were the dragonriders who should be here? Toric glared out across the tanned faces, looking for the Weyrleader. If K'van hadn't come...Then Toric located him on the left, where trees and the ferny shrubs of this highland formed a bordering park. He counted at least fifteen dragonriders and the three queen riders! Shards! He could make no complaint that they had been delinquent in performing this Weyr duty.  
>  [...Sintary begins to read...]  
>  Hamian and his new Plastics Hall. Plastic indeed, when he should be working metals: especially that lode of--what was it called? box-something--that produced very lightweight and malleable ore. Toric had by encouraged his young brother to pursue his Mastery in the Smithcraft only to have him fritter his skills away on some Aivas nonsense. The summarily exiled MasterGlass-smith Norist had been right to call the artificial intelligence an abomination.

Bauxite. Which will eventually be refined into aluminum. Which will be good for After. As will plastics, assuming that Pern's methods of extracting petroleum products are not nearly as caustic to the atmosphere as Terran processes are.

As you can see, Toric's grudge is several furloughs wide and as deep as the Marianas trench. And yet, still in power, holder autonomy, et cetera. Sintary finishes the oral report, calls for any petitions that the assembled might have, and then leaves the stage to post the report that was just read.

Toric leaves after scanning the crowd to see if anyone is giving Sintary any petitions, because the heat is getting to him. As soon as Toric is out of sight, Sintary is deluged with petitions from the crowd as he makes his way to the posting board with his printing-press-manufactured and plastic-coated notice to post, at least till everyone goes home after Turnover.

Then we get to hear Sintary's opinion of Toric.

> Not that Toric was a bad Holder. Quite rightly, he insisted that everyone earn his or her right to hold on his land. The man had had to put up with the vagaries of the [time-skipped] as well as incursions by thousands of folk streaming south, hoping for easier living. For all the tribulations the immigrants left behind, they acquired as many new ones here--but many of their supposed grievances would be minor.

_Cocowhat time, absolutely._

I realize Pern is supposed to be Ayn Rand's wet dream, and that Sintary is expressing the traditional contempt of the peasants from the aristocrats, but we still haven't bothered enough to actually say what the system of land ownership _is_ on Pern. The Charter and the early Pass book said each person was entitled to stake acres, and the implication was that people could willingly combine their land into bigger family units, but as far as I understood, each person's land was their land, at least until they died and the land passed to their inheritors. Now that we have a revived Charter, presumably everyone on Pern still has access to stake acres if they pay the fee. So Toric wouldn't have to deal with them.

"Hold on Toric's land," however, suggests a vassalage or landlord-tenant contract at work, and given that Pern does not have planet-wide nondiscrimination rules, presumably that means Toric can rent to whomever he wants by whatever criteria he wants.

What I want to know is how much cognitive dissonance it takes to believe that someone as contemptuous as Toric is of harpers and dragonriders (which can't be anything but an open secret) qualifies as "not bad." The "bootstraps!" narrative is essentially held by everyone on Pern, despite it not making any sense for them to do so, so it's not really a specific point of agreement between the two. The excuses given are mostly non-sequitur - dealing with the time-skipped isn't relevant any more, and unless the immigrants are trying to squat on his land, Toric really doesn't have to deal with that any more than the logistics of getting them through port, offering them supplies, and pointing them in the right direction of their new holdings.

It's certainly not impossible to hold the idea of "I think he's a terrible person, but he's a good leader" in your head, but harpers are supposed to be a backbone of society - education, duty, religion, and entertainment. The dragonriders are the police force and the objects of veneration. Someone expressing contempt for either of those institutions, as Toric is doing, even if in taking deniable jabs at them, should invoke a heavy backlash from the pious and the clergy about his suitability to lead. 

The section ends with Sintary observing Dorse and another guard moving away from what eventually sounds of breaking glass and an axe hitting wood. Sintary makes an executive decision to drop off all of his petition sheets before investigating.

So we'll stop, too.

_[The "people who are bad stay in power" problem has been an issue since the beginning of the series, with Fax. And, for as much as it's been passed off as "A Holder is the ultimate authority on their own lands and can't be displaced," every time that principle comes up against people who are being wronged by that Holder, the people who are being wronged generally prevail, because it turns out they'ce done something that **is** actionable under the Charter, or have committed some offense that allows the other Lords or the dragonriders to interfere or administer justice against that Lord. And with the way that the cult of the dragonrider works, and the fact that dragons are essentially the superior military might on Pern, they can act with relative impunity to dismiss or destroy Lords they don't like. Yet we're supposed to believe that dragonriders believe so strongly in non-interference that they're willing to tolerate people in positions of power who are openly contemptuous of them and their leadership. And who have acted against them or threatened dragonriders or attempted to trick them out of what they think is rightfully theirs. That Toric hasn't been met with an "accident" in hyperspace, or taken to a wrong location and then left behind, or any other Lord who has expressed open opposition to dragonriders hasn't been mysteriously vanished, makes no sense. Especially since the Benden Weyrleaders brough the Lords Holder to heel once by using their telelporting dragons to simultaneously kidnap their consorts and hold them hostage until they agreed to cooperate. Toric should long be dead by now and someone much more friendly to dragons put in his place._

_For as much as I have issues with everything in the next series coming up, they do get right the idea that a dragonrider, and especially a Weyrleader, is only accountable to other dragonriders or the narrative on Pern. Even if I would complain that many of the actions that particular Weyrleader asshole takes should have properly gotten him killed or disappeared himself from subordinates or an angry enough mob that could corner him. There's no check on abuse of power on Pern from anyone, unless they're someone the narrative has determined is a villain and thus an acceptable target. Whenever there's an allusion to the possibility that someone might just revolt, there's always some sort of "that would never happen, because everyone knows and accepts their place in society" on such a deep level that the idea itself would simply not occur to them, were it not for troublemakers telling them to do it. There aren't spontaneous revolts, there aren't other Lords invading their neighbors, there isn't anything resembling real and proper politics and interactions between fiefdoms. Pern explicitly states that almost everyone is trying to keep society static, and by doing so, by implication, that they don't have any of the expected problems that accompanied the actual historical period Pern is modeled on. It's nonsense to think things would be this static, and yet, the narrative requires it to be so.]_


	5. More Perspective Hopping

Last time, we looked at the Benden Weyrleaders contemplating getting old and the Southern Holder being as contemptuous as he could get away with without crossing the line into actual rude that would result in consequences.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 1: Segments IV and V: Content Notes: Torture**

We flit over to the Healer Hall, where Oldive is studying a virus under a microscope that looks suspiciously like one in the AIVAS files, but doesn't match up exactly enough to be definitively thus. So now I have to wonder if AIVAS was able to teach the Healers about genetic mutation and the general rule that smaller organisms mutate way faster than bigger ones. There have probably been more than sufficient generations of the virus that you could put them in the same family, but this specific strain is likely new.

Oldive is appreciative of the new headquarters he has at the hall, and the increased number of medics studying under him. Sharra surprises him in a stretch, because according to him, everyone with sense is out at the Gather, and not stuck behind the "triple-plated glass" that gives such a nice view without letting the cold in.

Pern has apparently been taught the secrets to insulating panes and layers of glass. And about mutations, too, at least to a basic knowledge, because Sharra asks as to whether this new virus is one, since the Pathology Records mention the possibility, and it's been long enough for mutation to take place.

Oldive is noncommittal about the answer, and says that Sharra should be with her husband. Sharra has no interest in being bored with proclamations and petitions, and asks whether they will have an electron microscope to use.

What's not mentioned is the infrastructure that would be needed to actually use such a thing, and with Pern still not really able to manufacture new computers (at least, last we checked), it looks like that dream will be a long time away. Master Morilton is forever in demand, and we finally learn why the other crafts aren't getting a whole lot of anything - the Healers have priority, and getting Healer Halls stocked fully is the priority of the Healers. Morilton is considering dedicating an entire Hall to fulfilling the Healer requirements.

_[As is pointed out in the comments, if they're talking about getting an electron microscope, that means the one that Oldive is staring through at the top of this segment is an optical microscope, and optical microscopes don't have the resolution and magnification abilities to see viruses all that well. By this point, though, we've already seen enough supposed science that doesn't actually science that it's no longer too glaring of an issue? Except that it's going to get worse when we meet Lorana, because then they start talking about genetics.]_

Both Oldive and Sharra are ready to take a meal break when they hear the sound of breaking glass, and understand they're the only ones in the Hall to deal with the intruders. First Sharra gets her own fire lizards to harass the unseen intruders, then asks Ruth to summon reinforcement lizards to drive them out. Which they do, into the waiting visages of some very angry dragons, but not before significant damage has been done to their storerooms and labs.

Oldive inquires as to why, and the leader of the group shouts for the need for the Abomination to be halted, a name that gives Sharra some shudders. Eventually, as the riders of the dragons arrive, the group is shouting some decent slogans.

> "Tradition must be upheld!" He glared around him, his angular face and burning eyes inciting his followers. "Halt abominations."  
>  "Turn back to tradition at Turnover!" screeched one of the three women, waving a bloody hand at Ruth, who frowned down at her.  
>  "Our petitions have been ignored!"  
>  "We protest the Abomination!"  
>  "And all its works!"  
>  "Abomination! Abomination!"  
>  Stoically, Sharra and Oldive endured the chanting.  
>  [...Reinforcements for the Healers arrive...]  
>  "Destroy all the Abomination's devices."  
>  "Purity for Pern!"  
>  "Turn to Tradition."  
>  "Avoid abominations!"  
>  [...more reinforcements for the Healers arrive...]  
>  "Abomination away!"  
>  "Restore our tradition!"  
>  **"Shut up!"** Groghe bellowed, the volume of his voice as intimidating as the powerful runnerbeast he pulled up just short of knocking the leader down. The man rocked back and it was then that Sharra noticed that he, and the rest of his vandals, had the effrontery to be wearing green: not the genuine Healer green but close enough to answer how they had been able to gain access to the Hall.

As a plan goes, this one is good - get colors close enough that you won't get a second look from the sentries, and then go smash things. And if there aren't people actually in the Hall, you get away with it and melt back into the crowd.

There's also a bit here in these shouting of slogans that has parallels to a religious profession of faith in at least the Catholic tradition. At least once a year, instead of reciting a creed, the congregation and priest do it as a question and response. The way it starts (or started, when I was much younger than I am now) was:

> "Do you reject Satan?" ["We do."]  
>  "And all his works?" ["We do."]  
>  "And all his empty promises?" ["We do."]

I wouldn't be surprised if that particular segment about protesting the Abomination and all its works wasn't inspired by that bit (or its equivalent in other denominations). Seems an appropriate thing to shout at something that you consider is the ultimate evil opposed to your pure traditions.

I'll also quibble that "Shut up" as a phrase is unlikely to have survived the journey across space and several millennia of a completely different context to have exactly the same meaning. Some form of "Silence!" certainly will, but not that form.

One of the protesters realizes she's bleeding from a head wound, and the assembled crowd is more than content to let her do so, but Oldive holds true to ethics and patches her up, suggesting that it will require stitches. The Luddites recoil at an "abomination," but I'm pretty sure wound stitching has been used long before AIVAS. It's just internal surgery that everyone has been up in arms about. _[As is pointed out in the comments to the original, Menolly's hand got sttiched up after she sliced it on the packtail, so it's pretty clear that surface surgery is absolutely fine and has been for a while. It's just poking about in the internals that's been forbidden, barring Cesarians and appendectomies.]_

Thankfully, context arrives in that Oldive's diagnostics and offer of numbweed are also rejected, with it getting clear that _Oldive_ and the Healers are the "abomination." Oldive remarks that having given his diagnosis and recommendation, he's done his job as a Healer, and it's up to them to accept or reject his suggestions. They reject it, and Oldive moves away. Right afterward, the Healer sent to check on the damage returns with her report.

> "The stillroom's a complete shambles! Every sack, canister, and bottle in the treatment rooms have been emptied, and what they didn't burn--" She paused in her telling to take a deep breath before she could continue. "--they urinated on!"

This sets the crowd off more, with one going so far as to use his club on a prisoner to beat someone to their knees. Groghe stops things before they get too far, claiming his prerogative as the Lord Holder, before trying to interrogate the group. They have no visible markings, and they're not talking, so Groghe asks the crowd to help search them. Which they do with a touch more vigor than Groghe wants, and over the protests of the prisoners that they have rights. A holder points out their rights mean precisely nothing in the face of having defied the Lord Holder _[, which is a much more stark acknowledgement of the reality of Pern than the narrative usually lets us see.]_

The Healer who gave the damage report, Keita, recognizes one of the group as a person who came for itch cream before, and goes off to see what name was given by the scout. Sebell, who came with the first party of reinforcements, points out the clothing and leathers of the prisoners will get their identities from the merchants they bought them from. Sharra points out that these people aren't dressed for the party, and that their beasts and saddlebags might provide all sorts of information about them. Which it does, as the beasts were ready for a quick getaway. Possibly to a ship in the harbor. There's one specific thing in the saddlebags that Groghe takes grim amusement at.

> Groghe held up a piece of paper by an edge. "What? You make use of abominations?" he cried, eyes glinting with malice as he turned to the leader. "No less than a map printed by Master Tagetarl's **abominable** press. Useful things, abominations!"  
>  Sharra tried not to grin at Groghe's style; he'd always appeared so pragmatic. Mockery was unusual for him, but today the gatherers loved it.

[OOC Is Serious Business](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OOCIsSeriousBusiness), y'all. And while the narrative suggests this is mockery, I think that mockery might be less conscious derision and more incredulity that such a thing would be put to use by those kinds of people. When you stare at rank hypocrisy, one of the first reactions you get is to laugh at it. At least for me, it is. Then you bear down on it. _[It's also likely that Groghe is playing to the crowd that's been summoned. If they don't get a sanctioned opportunity to mock and deride the people who have been captured, they might decide to get physically violent or to riot, and Groghe doesn't want that to happen.]_

As the Lords and assembled discover evidence that this Hall was not the only one targeted, the drums rumble in with a message of vandalism at Boll, and injury to Healers, which pisses Groghe off mightily. In retaliation, the prisoners are to be trussed up, sent to a level without lights, given bottled water only, denied contact with anyone else, and the leader delivered to a very specific space for interrogation. Groghe thunders off to his Gather requirements, and Oldive, Sebell, Sharra, and the arriving Benden Weyrleaders compare notes about the coordinated attacks, concluding that it's gone well beyond random attacks to an organized strike. With varying degrees of effectiveness - Tai forestalled a more complete destruction earlier in the book, and Fandarel repelled his invaders completely. Canon says Tai got "messed about" before her dragon arrived in support, but I'm inclined to believe that even a lightly drunk dragonrider would knock heads unless the assailants were trained fighters. Because trained fighting dragonrider. (Even if the narrative would insist she couldn't because girl.) _[More darkly, if Tai has been fending off unwanted advances from bronze riders, even if she hasn't been successful, that's also given her opportunities to fight and learn how to fight both well and dirty. So despite the fact that the narrative will tell us that she wasn't very effective at all, it doesn't track with her being a dragonrider and being someone who has probably had to fight regularly.]_

We follow Sebell to the searching of the packs and everyone seems horrified by a bound book where pictures of surgical procedures have been repurposed and re-captioned to make a propaganda volume called _Tortures of the Abomination_. Sebell thinks of it as amateurish and dismisses it as such in front of Horon, calling it the disinformation campaign that it is. He doesn't quite seem to solidly get that, without context, the pictures of medical procedures can be quite grisly and ghastly, but he's at least got an inkling of it so that he can not be seen to be affected by the propaganda.

_[And again, this seems like the sort of thing where Sebell is playing to the crowd, trying to defuse the propaganda and make it so worthless as to be essentially beneath his notice and not worth his attention as a Harper. If it were a more private setting, I would expect Sebell to be a lot more angry that trash like this is succeeding and inspiring other people to act. At least it's not like the people who were convinced children were being sex trafficked in a pizza parlor and went in with weapons out and firing because they had been convinced the baseless nonsense was true. Or the people who call special weapons and tactics teams to fake dangerous situations, taking advantage of their training and likelihood to shoot first and defuse the supposed situation and learn the truth later. Or any of the other conspiracy theories floating about that have resulted in the loss of life because people believed them and thought of themselves as the heroes of the situation who believed in the truth when nobody else would. The problem on Pern is the same as it is here on Terra - there's enough of a gap between the truth and what could plausibly be the truth, based on previously-true things for conspiracies to manifest and people to act on them. Especially when there are definitely bad actors who want to exploit that gap for their own purposes and pour lots of resources into refining and making it more plausible, making it show up higher and more repeatedly on their social media applications, and not acting swiftly to suffocate and deny the ability for any such conspiracy to get a hold anywhere. It's a difficult problem to solve.]_

Sebell sends for someone, who turns out to be the Healer with the surgical specialty, so that he can explain what the pictures and their context actually are to the assembled, and one of the exuberant holders reports to him that the prisoners are happily naming each other. And so we close out this particular segment...

...and jump back to Landing, where F'lessan is being told he should take a nap after all the excitement. This is how Tai is described:

> "I just want to check on Tai. They kicked her around a lot. Persellam said she'd be badly bruised but the gash on her cheek wouldn't scar."

Which suggests to me that Tai was ambushed by the vandals in some manner and overpowered that way. I'm still not sure on the how of that, and I'm still waiting to hear the part where she caused plenty of injury herself.

Tai is swimming, described as "a black spot in the sea," which is regrettably still making her ambiguously brown, in case it's her hair that's black and not her skin. F'lessan calls her in to shore, and then we get another thing that doesn't make sense:

> Her body, legs, and arms were covered by bruises. Persellan had done a neat repair of the gash on her right cheekbone.  
>  "What's wrong, F'lessan?" she asked anxiously, splashing the rest of the way.  
>  "What are you doing?" he demanded, looking but not looking--as was polite--at her long lean figure and her long, lovely legs.

No, I cannot suspend my belief nearly far enough to think that the dragonriders are uncomfortable about naked bodies or have a politeness requirement about such things, and that such a thing has developed over the course of this series. Perhaps in this new world it has always been this way, but it certainly has no precedent in any of the published works before. In fact, I would expect the dragonriders to have the least number of issues with nudity, given that they are likely to encounter each other having dragon-induced _[(or non dragon-induced, based on the stereotypes)]_ sex, and they seem to enjoy communal bathing, especially when the dragons have to be washed and scrubbed. That suddenly it's polite not to stare, and that it's a bronze dude doing it for a green woman stains credulity, given the known reputations of both of those rider types and the general lack of evidence that this kind of politeness has come up before. I can imagine this happening if it's _F'lessan_ trying to get over his reputation and he thinks it a good idea not to actively ogle, but I can't see that being extended to all the riders.

We finally get to peer in Tai's head, as F'lessan applies numbweed, about how things went down. Tai discovered the group, wrestled a crowbar from one of the men, "poked him hard in the groin" and then started laying about her indiscriminately. Apparently, though, it wasn't enough and Tai might have been seriously injured or killed had one of the vandals completed a swing of his hammer. Like I said, sounds like Tai gave as good as she got. Might have been knocked down and then hit from there, but everyone else had made it sound like she didn't do a lot of damage to the intruder group. _[This is all the narrative trying to make sure that Tai retains the requisite amount of femininity and delicacy so that she won't be a Mirrim who has to be blunted, but more like a Brekke who just has to be forced before she will realize she's been in love all along. Because the narrative is unreliable, I am entirely okay with headcanoning that Tai and the group got into a brawl like in a good action movie, and that she was doing fine beating them up until one of them got a lucky shot in at the end and they worked her over from there, to the point where she would be able to say, "Yeah, but you should have seen the other guys."]_

F'lessan finishes applying the numbweed, makes sure Tai is going home, and then Golanth tells him he's too loopy from a lack of sleep to go anywhere else but home and to bed, and takes him there. _[So, tell me again why Moreta ends up dying if dragons can and do have ways of telling their riders they're not accepting anything other than finest-quality imagery? But this is Pern, always looking forward, never considering what might have come before unless it's critical to the plot.]_ And we jump perspectives again.

This time, it's a war council composed of Benden and Fort Weyrleaders, Groghe and sons, Jaxom, Sharra, Sebell, and Crivellan, the Healer with the surgical specialty Sebell called earlier. N'ton went to go check and make sure there were no exiles from the last time unaccounted for on their island, which uses the AIVAS date - 2359 - as the time when they were exiled, instead of the Present Pass date, so N'ton seems on board with the new epoch system. Jaxom asks about the ones sentenced to the mines, and so naturally Groghe dismisses the escaped prisoner as likely dead, since he was deaf and not too bright, supposedly.

Lessa wants answers, and now, suddenly, we pick up a thread that hasn't been used in decades.

> However, the ability to sense people's thoughts--and sometimes cloud their perceptions with the strength of her mind--could be useful in extracting or confirming truths. Aivas had said she was as much a telepath as any of the dragons. [Her weyrmate] had called it "leaning on people," though she had never been able to cloud **his** mind. Still, though it was an enervating process and one she disliked being required to use, she had leaned on people to advantage on a number of occasions. Tonight would probably be another.

Oh, look, Lessa's got her psi powers back, as if the author had never buried them in an attempt to make the series much more of a straight fantasy before reintroducing the science fiction elements.

Also, "had never clouded his mind" is bullshit. The Benden Weyrleader did not take one look at her and realize she's the lost heir, rather than a drudge not worth noticing. He has been consistently able to feel when Lessa is deploying her power (and beat her for it when she did), but he did not pierce her disguise. We are supposed to believe that he has since been encouraging her to use the power rather than dissuading her more. It's an evolution that can happen, but it needs more than author fiat to be believable.

The war council takes stock of the damage and all the locations that were hit with attempts, and all agree that these were not random attacks, before asking Groghe about what information he collected from his batch of prisoners. Their fears and only having bottled water available for them in the mood for talking. Groghe says "No real discipline in the bunch," and "harrumphed at such moral weakness before he went on," which is a pretty shit thing to do. Of course, he's not the one being tortured so he can continue secure in his untested belief that he could withstand such things. _[In that, Groghe certainly continues to exemplify toxic masculinity in his mindset, as there are more than a few "bros" who believe they could withstand torture and not break, when the reality of it tends to be that most people, when tortured, do not come through it without severe scars, both physical and mental. And also, that's the reason why the BDSM dungeon monitors are there and why they need to be checked in with about the scenes that someone is planning. Not just for the safety of the participants, but also for the safety of the people around who may need that reassurance themselves that what is happening has been consented to and can be stopped, or to give them time to get away from the thing so their own triggers aren't stood on spectacularly.]_

The running thread through everyone that's been caught is that they all have a grievance against Healers for not fixing their ailments or because family members died of disease. _[Which, y'know, is something that a conspiracy could exploit if it put in their head that the reason the Healers couldn't fix/save someone is because they were putting their efforts into something else that would only benefit the people at the top. Which, y'know, means that it's actually very odd that this is the first time that the narrative on Pern is dealing with widespread unrest and conspiracy theories, because Pern usually **is** doing something that will only benefit the people at the top, and not anybody else.]_ Nobody knows yet who the leader of these groups are. There's some discussion about how rumor and negative ideas can spread easily and be very hard to combat, before Haligon suggests using the Runner corps as a vehicle to listen and be listened to about this situation and hopefully provide, warning, a way of combating propaganda, or both. That suggestion is adopted by the table. Likely Haligon will ask Tenna to spread the word.

Then they call for Batim, the leader of the group that smashed up the Healer Hall HQ, and try to get information out of him. Batim says very little but to demand his rights. The Benden Weyrleader casually threatens to leave Batim in hyperspace, and then Lessa casually mentions that they could trace messages back through the Runner network, find out from traders where they sold enough green to clothe a lot of people, and then starts naming places as potentially liable until she gets a reaction from him to confirm where he got his orders from. Without having said anything, Batim is providing enough clues that the council is satisfied, and Groghe orders Haligon to take Batim away.

Whereupon we get yet another place where the Charter and case law have supposedly fallen down - the treatment of prisoners.

> "I have rights! Chartered rights! You're all so big about that blinding Charter of yours," Batim cried hoarsely as Haligon called the guard in. The prisoner made a frantic surge toward the table but was thwarted by the quick-footed Haligon. Struggling, Batim reached straining fingers toward the glasses. "Water. I've had no water all day."  
>  "Actually," Lessa said in a cold voice, "the Charter does not cite water in the list of rights."  
>  "But it has to!"

I'm quite sure it doesn't. It should, but it doesn't. That said, as was pointed out in earlier Charter discussions, it also forbids corporal punishment. There is probably a solid legal argument that denying someone light and water constitutes corporal punishment. (They might be able to weasel around the water part by suggesting that the bottled water is sufficient for that obligation, and that prisoners are free to imbibe or not as they choose.)

As would dropping someone off in hyperspace. Crivellan is horrified that the Benden Weyrleader suggested such a thing. N'ton points out that it is a convincing threat, but it's empty because dragons don't hurt people. Which is not common knowledge in any way, and as far as I know, a trained dragon and rider probably could leave someone behind if the rider really willed it to happen. It was used to get Batim mentally off-balance. Knowing that, Crivellan immediately apologizes for doubting the methods. I suppose it's no more dirty than police officers making empty but convincing threats to get suspects to talk, and there's plenty of case law here on Terra that allows police to flat-out lie to someone if it gets that person to tell the truth about crimes committed. Which is to say it's a terrible dirty trick and should be deplored, but it's probably not forbidden in the Charter to lie to someone else.

Pern needs the equivalent of the Geneva Conventions, the Conventions on Torture, and a whole lot of other laws that would be applicable planet-wide, and it needed them in the actual Charter.

_[Not that having such things in the laws of Terra actually stops police from using whatever tactics they deem are necessary to get a person to testify or give evidence or otherwise make it easier to prove their guilt. And since most police forces are unconcerned about finding justice, focusing on obtaining convictions they can use to further make people believe they're a necessary part of civic life, it stands to reason that Pernese police forces, under the autocrats that are theoretically narrative-approved, would be similarly unconcerned with the rights of the accused or in holding back from tactics that are inhumane. Mostly because they've already convicted them and are really only trying to get them to give up their co-conspirators. If you're looking for a good example of how policing in general can be corrupt and terrible, here's a fictional example to use. Because any sane entity would have rules about teh acceptability or legality of reaching into someone's mind and in using torture techniquees on them to make that information available to the mind-readers.]_

What Lessa pulled from Batim's mind was mostly him trying to get psyched up for the torture he was sure would happen to get him to talk.

> "The very idea!" Master Crivellan was appalled.  
>  "Someone like Batim would probably enjoy being tortured," Jaxom remarked."  
>  "Jaxom!" Sharra exclaimed.  
>  "He's right, you know," Lessa said. "Don't deny that you would have liked to help, considering how distressed Master Oldive was."  
>  " **Then** I would have," Sharra replied candidly, "not now. I'm sorry they don't know better."

...not wrong, Jaxom. Batim probably would use it as fuel to make himself into a martyr. He probably is using what is already being done to him for that purpose. [ _Torture doesn't wooooooooooork! Except in copaganda.]_

The assembled have small recriminations about how they're not really paying attention to how progress is being received, but they mostly just blame it on the people being too stupid to understand the benefits of what's happened and willing to believe easy lies over hard truths. They lack understanding, and so the plot can continue.

_[There's some significance here for the 21st century Terrans, too, as "they're too stupid to understand" was and is an attitude attributed to the liberal party in the United States, with comments about people "clinging to guns and religion" brought up as how out-of-touch the liberal party is with what the "real" country thinks, and then exploited by the conservative party to commit and advocate for atrocities that only benefit the wealthiest, who are the people that are really backing the conservative capitalists. It's counter-intuitive to realize that what little power you're allowed to have rests on you perpetuating a system that insists people who are even less powerful than you are trying to usurp your power, when taking real power back for yourself involves dismantling the system and bringing to heel the people who have not only set themselves up as your betters, but do all they can to insinuate that if you perpetuate the system, you will become like them. It's a conspiracy theory, but one that a lot of people but into because they think that one-in-a-billion chances happen far more frequently than once in a billion. What we're seeing here is the real attitude, from the people who actually do have power, deliberately deciding to perpetuate their own power and their own system rather than realize what's happened and work to destroy it. Because they're not planning on giving up their power any time soon.]_

Inquiries are set up to trace people and goods, and Groghe demands exile for his prisoners. This provides a little more illumination as to how the process works...

> Crivellan jumped at the crack of fist on wood. "I thought that required a trial and jury," he said, surprised.  
>  Groghe gestured to include those present. "Masters, Weyrleaders, and Lord Holders. Adequate judges. The vandals were caught in the act. Plenty of people saw what they did. Destroyed valuable property, depriving others of medicines and services. [...]"

...but it's still going to be a kangaroo court. Groghe bullies Crivellan into going along with the idea by saying the Healer Hall needs to make a statement about how you can't attack them with impunity.

In any actual adversarial process with a presumption of innocence, the torture already underwent by the prisoners would probably be enough to exonerate them, or at the very least have a significant amount of evidence and testimony thrown out as fruit of a poisoned tree. There might be enough impartial witnesses to make a proper case, but Groghe and his sons and any of the parties to the treatment of the prisoners would not be accepted.

Decisions made, the war council breaks apart, and we finally get to the end of the first day of this particular part. 

Tomorrow, it's Haligon and the Runners, and now we know why we stopped off at Runner of Pern first.


	6. The Second (and Third) Day

Last time, we actually got to see what the attackers were up to, and there were torture threats, and a plan was decided on for tracing back the Luddites to their leader.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 1: Segments VI, VII, VIII, and IX: Content Notes:**

It is now 1.2.31, and Haligon is paying a call on Fort's Runner Station Master, Torlo, who we met, along with Tenna, in the short story Runner of Pern. There's no word back on a trace from Crom, Tenna's out on a run, and so Torlo offers formal hospitality to try and figure out what Haligon is up to. Haligon, for his part, is trying not to upset Torlo. Fire-lizards carrying messages hasn't destroyed the runner system, and Haligon picks up that Torlo might not have a lot of love for the Smiths, but he does find at least some common ground that they both think the Healers have benefited well and spread their new knowledge freely from the AI. Torlo says that the Runners don't permit propaganda books to travel on their network, but things are still frosty between them, and Haligon is able to finally get Torlo to admit that he thinks the Runners are going to be displaced by either dragons (Haligon tells him they're too expensive and there aren't nearly enough riders considering the service) or by the radio devices being developed by the Smiths (Haligon points out the devices lack the necessity infrastructure, like communication satellites, to be truly long-range items, and that they're very expensive). Haligon's explanations seem to at least mollify Torlo.

We note that terrestrial line-of-sight radio and telegraph will be available once towers can be erected that will not be destroyed by Thread, but even then there will still likely be need for Runners until you can cover the planet in radio relays. At which point we kind of hope a forward-thinking Runner develops PT&T in partnership with the Harper Hall and things go from there.

Haligon, for his part, after wishing Tenna would espouse him, goes back home to sort petitions, and we switch over to the Keroon Printer Hall on 1.3.31, where Tagetarl is dealing with the problems of having a printing press but not a spell-check program. He needs the dictionaries updated and to figure out a way of spotting errors before they print hundreds of copies. (I presume he knows he needs proofreaders, but even then, as we know in our days here on Terra, things still slip through.)

A sound puts Tagetarl on alert, but it's Pinch, announcing himself with casual and improper grammar. ("It's me" is improper - me is an object descriptor, so it should be "It is I", because I is the subject descriptor. Unlike many of the other problems with the language, I'm more than willing to believe this particular error has persisted through all this time.) Tagetarl calls Pinch out on his grammar, before revealing to us that ever since the propaganda books have shown up, the Printer Hall shreds anything that's not perfect. Tagetarl also says he has jobs available for anyone that has the skills to proofread. Pinch then reveals the reason for his visit.

> Keroon has all sorts of hill folk, you know, the kind that don't want their kids Harper-taught or Healed. Then there're the ones who aren't really hill folk. Who get too many visitors and have had very interesting indoor occupations."

I _still_ want to know about these "hill folk" and how they came to be, because they're the best foil I have for the rest of the planet's social structure. Are they survivalists? Cultists? A group shunned from polite society surviving on the fringes?

_[None of those, although we will at least get the opportunity to spend a little time with people who have been shunned from polite society in the Todd books. Not that it means it makes any sort of sense at all, but we'll get to poke into that aspect of society. Sadly, the "hill folk" are still only the glimpses we get of them with Merelan and Petiron, and they're used as props and covers for the conspirators to hide among, rather than being seen as a distinct group of people who have either chosen or been forced out of society and who need to be accounted for, even if they're supposed to be ignored. A good Harper, or at least one that somehow manages to rediscover anthropology, would want to go out and collect their music, their culture, their materials, so that they can keep them archived, but also so they can try to understand why they're sitting outside of society in the first place. But, as seems to be the case on Pern, the Harpers are no more interested in exploring the world around them than anybody else.]_

__

__

Pinch, of course, asks for paper and inks to sketch the people who clearly don't belong among the backcountry folk, while eating some food for himself and his fire lizard. While he sketches the visitors received with fanfare, we get Pinch's heritage - and the implication that Nip was not the only spy out in the world. Nip trained Tuck ("another nonconformist", according to the narrative) and let Sebell see inside that world. Tuck trained Pinch (and at least two others), even as Sebell put Piemur to work in much the same way as Nip put Sebell. Pinch will provide other sketches after some sleep, but Tagetarl uses his own fire lizard to send the first few sketches to Sebell, and we pop over to Benden Weyr.

F'lessan is present for a pre-Threadfall briefing of Wingleaders, and although his mind wanders a bit wishing the Weyrleader would take some time off, he comes back to attention in time to get his wing's assignment. Mostly, at this point, we're learning that some greens are used as reservists to bring in extra firestone sacks (I thought this was some part of Weyrling duty.) and that F'lessan thinks about what it would be like to fly with Tai. But that gets pushed away in the loading and locking and eventual fighting of Thread.

And then we take a five day time skip to Monaco Bay, where Tai is, as she watches Zaranth stare intently at trundlebugs working in their straight lines. There's a little bit of "some bugs are terrible, but trundlebugs are okay, and also, bugs and floods are a really good reason to sleep and live off the ground" before we get to just how much progress has been going on.

> Tai's little house was just beyond her hammock: all of its shutters were open to let in what wind there was, the fine-net screens preventing the entry of airborne insects. The afternoon breeze generally wafted away those clinging to the material. The diurnal ones departed at dusk, the nocturnal ones were noisier but photosensitive. A tall spire of solar panel provided Tai with what power she needed: for lights, the warmer plate, the cold box, and for the occasional hot air during the worst of the cold weather--which, to her, was never as cold as it had once been in Keroon's foothills.

Quite a bit of progress, indeed. And Pern presumably has all the right minerals and materials needed to construct such complex things as solar panels, refrigerators, and heaters.

The actual point of the trundlebug, though, is that its path would take it into Zaranth's nostril, so Zaranth moves it out of her way. Not physically, by exhaling or moving her body, but mentally, to Tai's great surprise.

AIVAS predicted this, and was actually disappointed that the dragons hadn't developed their telekinetic abilities significantly in the interim. Tai doesn't know this, of course, and would have lots of questions on the how, except that someone has called for help in dealing with a very large group of felines and T'gellan is turning out half the wing to fight them, including Tai.

Zaranth is very apt at hunting, and after a close call with a camouflaged feline, snags one with a move that snaps its spine before whirling and snapping the neck of its hunting partner. Tai briefly considers trying to lift the cats onto the dragon, so as to skin them away from the pests, but realizes they're way too heavy for her, and so she gets to work on them, skinning one before taking a break to see how the others are doing.

Dragons also apparently really like the taste of big feline, as Zaranth is apparently drooling while Tai does her work.

One of the herders, Rency, provides Tai with water and fans get to get all the insects off, and offers to accompany her back to the second to help skin it, an offer Tai accepts. Rency is described as having "a short bow and a wherhide carrier full of the sort of barbed arrows that would be needed to bring down felines", and I have trouble believing that either barbed arrows or quivers are a recent invention, given that the Pernese have been hunting flying creatures for a very long time, and have had some sort of standing military at each Hold for a little less than that. Perhaps they've never redeveloped, say, the English longbow and its phenomenal stopping power, but it seems reasonable that bows and arrows have been around for quite some time.

Tai offers to help move the herdbeasts in the right direction, since they're terrified of dragons, and it turns out T'gellan and Mirrim had the same idea. So they do. And then plan to go for a swim once the herds are moving in the right direction again.

That's the end of Part 1. We've spent a lot of time on only a few days. The Luddites look to be the A plot, but F'lessan, Tai, and Zaranth figuring out what, exactly, makes the dragons able to use telekinesis on things they're not carrying looks to be a respectable B plot, as everyone prepares for the eventuality of After.

More next week.


	7. More Visitors

At the end of Part 1, we have a successful Luddite attack in the books, all of which our main players are involved in, one way or another, and Tai's Zaranth has demonstrated the ability to move things that she isn't holding on to, proving AIVAS was right about that as a draconic ability.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 2: Segments I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII: Content Notes: Toxic Masculinity**

Local time 12:04 in the morning, 1.9.31

Part 2 starts with more meteors, or comets, streaking through the sky at Ruatha. Sharra sees them first and summons Jaxom and Brand to use their binoculars and take a look at the phenomenon as well. All of which seem to be originating from a single space.

And also Sharra using AIVAS surgery knowledge to repair a tendon.

The next several segments, actually, are various other places waking up (Telgar, local time 4:04 in the morning, Benden, local time 6:04 in the morning, Harper Hall, local time 1:00 in the morning), looking as the astronomical phenomenon and realizing it's very different than the usual ones, and everyone engaging in a mass scramble to Landing to get the telemetry from the Yokohama and a little more of an idea of what is going on.

Also, R'mart retired from Telgar, at some point between books, a meteorite dropped on Circle Runner Station (and likely obliterated it) _[a thousand years in the past, apparently]_ , Menolly is the fastest of the Harpers in figuring out that some people will believe this to be some sort of AIVAS act from beyond the grave or the revenge of the Red Star, even if none of that is remotely conceivable, much less true, and F'lessan is equally as reckless as his parents have been when it comes to safe distances for takeoff and hyperspace warping. Everyone else roused heads back in, reasoning that putting more stone between them and a potential celestial object is a good idea. (Which it is.) So only the astronomer dragonrider goes to represent Benden as well as Honshu.

Which is where the plot picks back up - a lot of very frightened people staring at telemetry data at Landing (local time 10:21 mid-morning), but only a few of them able to interpret what it might mean. F'lessan is hopeful that the orbit of the object will be hyperbolic, so that it will "give everyone a beautiful display, a bad fright, and then disappear, still shedding part of its mass."

Since there's such a crush of people at the Admin building demanding answers, F'lessan has Golanth drop him on the roof, which turns out to be a poor decision in terms of finding purchase, but some of the guards to the building help him fall safely off the roof. He gives a few orders for T'gellan, Mirrim, and Tai to be let in when they manage to get through the crowd, and then heads to the room where the telemetry data in on screen.

The prognosis is not good - the Yoko has already started calling it a potentially hazardous object (PHO), and the calculations keep becoming more certain that it's going to strike the planet somewhere. It's a comet, and a fairly large one at that. The target space for impact is a question of whether it will obliterate an island, potentially setting off a volcanic chain reaction, or splash down into the sea, where all that energy has to be absorbed by the sea. That particular island chain is uninhabited, except for the island of exile for the anti-AIVAS faction from the previous books.

It hits the sea. Here's the summary data (slightly reformatted for readability):

> Impactor Summary  
>  Probable cometary origin  
>  Impact velocity: 58.51 km/sec  
>  Dimensions: 597 m x 361 m x 452 m ellipsoid  
>  Volume: 51 million cubic meters  
>  Average Density: 0.33 (+/- 0.11)  
>  Total Mass: 17 million tons  
>  Derived Impact Energy: 29.7 Exajoules  
>  Explosive Equivalent: 7.4 gigatons

And the coordinates of impact, which is how they know it touches the sea.

This is a nitpick, but I can't imagine a computer that's been programmed to give a report in both SI and Imperial units in the same report.

That said, the energy release mentioned is 2.97 x 10^19 joule, which The Other Wiki says is about .5 of the energy an average hurricane uses making rain in a single day. Lessa will later remark that the hurricanes of various areas seemed to be more destructive than what this comet did, but that's without fully understanding the devastation that a tsunami can cause. And that's without having to worry about nuclear reactors that could go critical when power is lost to the systems that keep them regulated.

It also notes one ton of TNT is 4.184 x 10^9 joule, which makes it relatively easy to see if 7.4 gigatons is in the ballpark (which it is, but the measured energy release is a little less than 7.40 gigatons exactly.)

Everyone seems relieved that the comet touched down in the water, except F'lessan, who understands that the heat of the comet's passing has set several forests on fire, which is bad, but worse, all the energy that was in that comet has to go somewhere, and giant waves that will swamp, flood, and destroy anything in their path is what's happening on the screens in front of him. F'lessan can't recall the word, but Tai arrives with the word (tsunami) and Mirrim and T'gellan, all three of whom understand what danger the coastal regions are in from this wall of water, although their experience has been limited to the sea/earthquake varieties. The strength of the potential disaster is enough to frighten Mirrim, the narrative tells us, who gets "a piercing look" and a head shake from Erragon, the chief in charge of the Interface room, when she asks what it all means. Because even though there's a death wall of water coming, we can take time to be crude about wimmins and science, amiright? _[The comments section suggests that it's "merely" more of everyone being shitty at Mirrim, of which there are plenty of examples to come, as well as the Son of the Benden Weyrleaders wishing Mirrim would fall and break a leg when she attempts the same stunt that he did to get into the Admin building, which isn't quoted. Since Mirrim is the designated punching bag for everyone, even people who don't have a reason to think of her as different than any other dragonrider, this being just one more thing piled on makes perfect sense.]_

Erragon finally beseeches all the dragonriders to evacuate all the coastal holds, and asks for maps, which allows (retired) Masterfisher Idarolan to step in, with said maps, having been summoned by Weyrleaders to the spot. He gives advice that the dragonriders need to make good _time_ , emphasis in the original, to achieve their evacuation goals, and the riders (specifically, the bronze ones) are told to get out and spin the clock back and get themselves enough warning to evacuate everyone.

This does avoid the "you have time-traveling dragons! Use them!" critique, but the scope seems rather small. Given that the bronzes are being asked to do the thing, why don't they go back sufficiently where they can put a rock in the way of the comet's orbit and deflect it from ever entering the atmosphere? Or use the newfound confidence they got from lifting antimatter engines to port the comet out of the way while it was still in space? Are there fixed points in time where this disaster has to happen, but you can bend things enough to evacuate all the people out? Time travel is a useful plot device, but it has to have some rules or it becomes a deus ex machina. _[Just wait until you get to Fiona, self. There will be more than enough unexplained arbitrariness around time travel as a plot device to fill posts upon posts of WTF.]_

Also, way to sideline your heroes, narrative. Unless there's a grand purpose for leaving Tai and Mirrim in the present, why can't the other colors go back and do evacuation as well? To the best of my knowledge, it has never been established one way or another whether all dragons can do the time warp again, or whether only bronzes and golds can. (And it turns out that Zaranth and Path are coming along, anyway, as F'lessan directs Golanth to give Zaranth the time-shifted coordinates to warp to.) _[And, had I been thinking, like the commenters were, the fact that Lessa brought entire Weyrs forward in time means that, yeah, all kinds of dragons can do the time warp. So can all the dragons that were sent back in time by Jaxom and Ruth to do the antimatter lift. And it was a blue rider, I think, who was accused of timing it too much. So, yeah, there's really no reason to say "only bronzes! No other colors!" when what you need is to get a whole lot of people and things out of the way in a hurry. Other than, y'know, bronze dragon riders being glory hounds and believing they are the best and don't need any help at all.]_

The narrative kicks us back to the conference room, where the Benden Weyrleaders, Wansor (who has lost most of his sight by this point, and yet can still tell who is coming into the room by their perfume), Lytol, and D'ram are watching the same information that the previous group was watching, too, and already formulating the plan to get people to safety once the comet strikes by bringing in Idarolan and his maps, where Lessa suggests that her mate leave sufficient _time_ for enough preparation, and then suggests to Idarolan what he say to the other riders to make sure everyone can be evacuated with the same suggestion to make _time_.

Then we go back to Monaco Bay Weyr, local time 10:22, just after Mirrim had left for Landing, so there's no messy paradox to have to deal with. Mirrim does what a good Weyrwoman does and takes charge of the situation.

> "Well, we're back and there's an emergency, Dilla," Mirrim said, going to the bell and rigorously pulling its rope. "C'mon, Tai, we can start evacuating the children. You can help, too, F'lessan, while 'Gell gets the maps." She raced inside and F'lessan heard her announcing the crisis to all within.  
>  Typical Mirrim, he thought, but at least she was over the panic that had seized her in the Interface office. Immediately there were screams, sobs, shouts, and general confusion.

This vein continues, from "Mirrim's shrill voice was organizing the weyrfolk inside," to "Mirrim's bossy streak was in full operation," and "...even his dragon would not thwart Mirrim in this mood or under these circumstances." But when you're in a crisis situation, what most people need the most is _a leader_. The person that starts giving orders is the person that generally gets followed, and that can essentially get people to do something more than panic. This works for most people, whether it's an operation to evacuate a Weyr from an incoming wave or to get a person out of a house with all the stuff they need before their abuser gets home. If F'lessan has time to snark about how Mirrim isn't behaving like a dainty girl, he's not using all the time he has to help with the evacuation. Which mostly seems to consist of directing people and helping them get themselves and their goods in the dragons so they can be transported away.

> It was as well that dragons had an innate instinct for avoiding each other on the ground as well as in the air for the traffic in and out of the main Weyr clearing was amazing.

Once the Weyr is secure, dragons get dispersed along the coastlines to evacuate the holders, all still working on borrowed time. T'gellan leaves a final warning: 

> "Don't shave time too close! Lessa would kill me if you got time-lost!"

And now I want to know how many tragedies happen of this nature that there's a name for it, and if anyone has come back long enough to describe it such that it gets such a name. If you meet yourself in the timestream, do you both poof out of existence? (No. Lessa created a Stable Time Loop of warning herself of Fax.) Is it a reference to how Moreta got lost in hyperspace because she didn't have a destination in mind? (Maybe. Beyond Between suggests that it was because rider and dragon were mismatched for each other, though.) Maybe if two of you touch each other at the same time, you wink out of existence because the timestream hates the paradox you created.

F'lessan does wonder to himself as to whether everyone is participating in a large-scale version of Moreta's Ride, and what caused the fatal final jump, before the narrative hops back to the conference room, local time 1:10, where we should be starting to see the ripple effect of the Stable Time Loop that is forming. We'll stop here and pick it back up next week.

_[The Fiona books, on the other hand, since they use a lot of people existing in the same time as part of their plots, point out that being in two times at once involved a lot of tiredness and inability to do mental tasks like simple sums, at least when you're on the part of the loop where you're not deliberately back in time by your own choice, and that, in the same way that Lessa experienced significant problems from being thrice in the same time, Fiona will experience the same. What little rules we can try to figure out seems to suggest that the closer you are to yourself when you're in the same time, the more terrible the effects are of being multiply-in-time. But they're not always applied consistently, or we're supposed to assume that everyone who ends up exhibiting the signs of being twice in time develops a klah habit as a counteraction to the phenomenon, because apparently dumping a lot of caffeine into the system is good enough to overcome the symptoms of being twice in time. Not that anyone ever uses that understanding to help guide their future actions or to have a good guess at what those actions might be and when, because it's apparently also a bad idea to know what the future is going to be like and knowledge might mess up the timestream. Even though the timestream is inviolable. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.]_


	8. Ripple Effects

Last time, a comet dropped down and said hello to Pern, generating sufficient panic among everyone present that the Weyrleaders present agreed to allow every rider that already knows dragons can time travel to do just that so that the coastal areas that are going to be affected can be evacuated in time, while everyone who is on the ground will be staring at the interesting thing in the sky, not knowing if it is going to be a problem or not. We pick up after a first amount of effort has been made to move everyone to safety.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 2: Segments VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV: Content Notes:**

The action has returned to the conference room, local time 1:10, so after everyone has theoretically gone back and done their evacuations, although no reports have yet come in about their successes. Lessa is currently alone in the conference room, everyone else having gone somewhere to muster people or oversee their evacuations, which leaves her as the only person present for Erragon to explain that the tsunami wave is going to impact places like Monaco in multiple waves, based on how the water flow is going. Some places may have breakers, natural or built, to help disperse the waves before they crash in, but there's still going to be a lot of wave action and flooding all across the coastlines of the South. Erragon thinks the Dolphin Hall will be mostly spared by having land in the way of the waves. Lessa reflects bitterly on the hurricane that apparently caught everyone by surprise in comparison to having time to evacuate from this impact, which doesn't make any sense to me, because presumably time travel is time travel and once you know the pathway the hurricane is planning on traveling, you can get out of its way. Hurricanes do not, to my knowledge, simply spring up and make landfall. If the Yoko has telemetry on cosmic objects, it should be able to spot a big storm forming. If we knew more about the rules regarding time travel, this wouldn't seem like such an issue. _[One of the comments suggests that the Yokohama would be much more useful to everyone as a weather satellite than as a celestial observatory. I also think this is the first time that extreme weather events like hurricanes and seaquakes have been mentioned. Before, it was just all Thread, all the timel.]_

Erragon continues to describe the extent to which the wave will travel, including the places in the southern parts of the North that will be affected and to what extent. Lots of the arrival times being talked about are in a four o'clock hours, which seems appropriate, given folklore that the pronunciation for the number four and the one for death are fairly close to each other in many languages that have Chinese as an origin, including Japanese, where "tsunami" comes from.

Having seen what will likely happen, the Benden Weyrleaders convene a meeting to inform the appropriate people about what is going to happen to them and the need for them to get their people to safety. In attendance is Janissian, the granddaughter of Sangel that wants to stand for that Hold's lordship. During the briefing, a loud boom interrupts and sends Erragon shouting into the hall that it was "the ground shock wave" from the comet's impact arriving on schedule.

Having never been in an earthquake, I have no idea whether they make a large amount of sound when the seismic wave arrives. I'm more inclined to believe the loud boom is a sonic boom due to the comet strike, rather than loud ground, and if that's the case, I think seismic waves travel faster through ground than sound through air. _[One of the commenters has, and no, there wouldn't be a loud boom as a result of the seismic wave hitting. A sonic boom, absolutely, and depending on how quickly the aves travel through their respective media, the sound might arrive at the same time as the shake, but no, when the ground shakes, it doesn't make loud booming sounds.]_

As it is, the narrative spins back to a coastal hold where F'lessan and two other dragons are tasked with getting the gawking holders to get out of the way of a wave they don't know is going to hit yet. F'lessan notices the dolphins are doing their best to sound an alarm, and so he piggybacks on their warning to give credence to his own. It doesn't convince them at all until F'lessan manages to get someone with a telescope to look in the right direction just as the comet splashes down and see the beginning of the tsunami, which starts to convince a few, but it's not until the sonic boom and the seismic wave arrive a few minutes later that the Seaholder is convinced of the wisdom of evacuation.

In this particular case, the matriarch of the hold, Lady Medda, engages in the same bossy behavior F'lessan was faulting Mirrim for, giving orders and directing traffic efficiently. F'lessan doesn't complain a bit about her. The fact that she looks like she's had "nine or ten decades of living" probably has a lot to do with it. The evacuation is successful, even with enough time to rig up three boats full of things to carry to the high ground. And one very emergency rescue of the Seaholder, who couldn't make it to the heights before the wave would. Thankfully, Golanth grabs the Seaholder and they all warp through hyperspace before the wave crushes everyone, Golanth even giving a little extra time back for the rescue, so that the schedule isn't off, despite the extra rescue. Which flattens F'lessan all the more, in addition to the exhaustion of the scramble. The Hold gives their thanks in unison, and then Lady Medda continues to organize the effort to get everyone under shelter to wait out the effects of the wave and the storm that comes with it. The other riders give F'lessan their thanks after helping him into his riding gear so that they can all pop back to Landing.

Local time 2:12 and the party being sent to inform Toric is apparently the Brown Rider Rapist and K'van, neither of whom relishes the idea. They agree to take Sintary as well. We get a quick dip into what Idarolan thinks of Janissian:

> He'd heard good things about her, taking hold with her grandmother ever since old Sangel became so erratic. This night be an excellent time for the girl to show her leadership qualities. She was the best of Sangel's blood.

And, apparently, two women took over while the Lord is not necessarily fully able to work with his faculties. And not enough people put up a fuss about how it wasn't right to have women in charge? A lot _has_ changed since Thella tried to take her birthright. _[The commenters suggest not so much, that it might be a regular practice of politely pretending that orders are coming from the Lord of the Hold while he's still alive, even if it's clear he no longer has the ability to rule or make decisions, and that even with all of this experience in running the place, since it was all done in the name of the Lord, clearly women are not suited to ruling. Except, again, as noted, Lady Nerra and the history of Boll, and other such issues where a continuity document would help avoid these conradictions showing up.]_ This meeting breaks up to inform various people at Southern, Nerat, and Southern Boll of the impending disaster and to get them to safety, before moving forward about 90 minutes to local time 3:40 and the return of F'lessan, along with a cavalcade of dragons already there, back from their own missions. The queens are directing traffic, and the orders for everyone, essentially, are _rest_. 

Next section is at the Harper Hall, where Sebell is trying to direct the drum system to provide accurate communication to all the panic messages coming in asking for more information. There's a chuckle between him and the Brown Rider Rapist delivering the maps about how Toric is going to regret having "undisclosed" coastal holds, and a little conversation (that seemed like a throwaway when it appeared in the last section) about keeping tabs on how the Luddites will spin this disaster and try to explain away how having a ship in the sky that could track and predict these things is a terrible idea. _[That's a fairly cavalier attitude about loss of life and property there, if the implication is that the undiscolsed holds, since they don't officially exist, are going to get no warning at all about the incoming wave, unless they happen to notice it themselves and book it for the higher ground, but because they're working with Toric, they've been branded as acceptable losses by both the narrative and the ostensible good people of the story.]_

Without a section break, Canth and his rider had to Southern, with Canth making a very smug remark:

> Ruth is not the only dragon who knows when he is

Which flatly contradicts the earlier books that said most dragons don't have a good grasp of time and that was what made timing things with precision difficult and dangerous. If the trait is much more widespread, is there any way that someone could try to breed for it in the dragon population? _[No, not really. But, equally interesting is that in the next sequence of books, we're going to meet Lorana, who is a human with an uncanny time sense, and then we're also going to have a sequence where people who navigate deserts by star formations will teach that to dragonriders, with the benefit of all dragonridres who have been taught to envision the night sky will have much better accuracy in their time jumps. Which makes you wonder why that skill disappeared with all of the other entirely useful skills that aren't there when the plot needs someone to rediscover them later on.]_

Canth's rider reflects on one reason why the hurricane had been a disaster upon arrival: Toric had warning from the dolphins, but didn't move quickly enough to shelter.

The news is delivered to a roused-from-bed Toric, who is aggravated enough at the news and who is delivering it that he tries to take a swing at Canth's rider, only to be solidly punched in the shoulder by Idarolan to stop him and then roared at by Idarolan to get his ass in gear and start evacuating. Canth's rider then heads on to see the devastation at Monaco and to watch the tsunami pound at and try to overwhelm other places and eventually run out its energy without flooding a space.

Then it's back to Landing, where Tai is waking F'lessan and getting him to drink and eat something after his nap. And in his first few thoughts is him being the...dragonrider he is.

> Then he realized that it was cloudy. Landing's usually bright sun was visible as a hazy yellow orb in the forbidding sky.  
>  "Dust in the air, someone told me," Tai said with no expression in her voice. She wasn't a volatile personality, like Mirrim or Lessa, F'lessan thought. More like Brekke, quiet, self-contained: definitely reserved.

...so, that's terrible, given what happened to Brekke because a rider took a liking to her, but also Mirrim and Lessa are being insulted again for being women with active voices and personalities. So Tai's options appear to be to get pressured until she gives in or F'lessan stops waiting, or to assert herself and catch the backlash for being uppity.

You're a terrible person, F'lessan.

Plot-wise, Tai runs down the damage report so far - Monaco is destroyed utterly, most of the rest of the places have flooding, but neither dolphin nor human seems to have suffered casualties, barring those humans who ignored the warnings or tried to go back and get something left behind. Those humans distress Tai the most, and F'lessan tries to reassure her that everyone did everything they could do to get all the people to safety. Tai points out that the comet still dropped and the waves flooded, to which F'lessan retorts that dragons couldn't have stopped either of those events. (Time travel is time travel, says I. Until you can point out the rules that stop you from doing it, Tai has a point.) And, of course, the secret of time travel isn't supposed to be spoken of to outsiders, even now, which annoys F'lessan a lot.

_[This is essentially how things get explained in the Fiona books as well - time travel is such that if you didn't already do it, you didn't do it, and you won't be able to do it, so stop trying, and stop asking for an explanation as to why you can't go back in time and do something if you get new information that will allow to successfully do something. Even though there are going to be several situations where getting that new information and then going back in time is crucial to the success of the operation in the past, much like how it was here. The more time travel gets used as a plot device, the more it needs to be explained, and the less it will be in these situations.]_

When Tai discovers that the feline pelts she's been sleeping in were not rescued by F'lessan, but by Zaranth, there will be explaining to do...

...but not on camera, because we are back to the Printer Hall at Keroon, local time 11:15 (same time as the last segment), where Master Tagetarl has been keeping tabs on the drum messages and the scramble in the bay to make sure there's nothing in the path of the great wave that will be arriving soon enough. There's a messenger here with a priority printing request from the Benden Weyrleader, with strict orders to make sure she doesn't leave until Tagetarl has done it. Tagetarl seems bemused until he reads the message, and then he springs the Hall into immediate action to print big broadsheets for immediate distribution before sending the rider, Danegga, who has borrowed Path, to the kitchens to eat and drink while the Hall prints the requested material. It's an opportunity to "try that 26-point they'd just added." (And nary a mention of the word "font", only "boldest print face.") Danegga gets, as requested, the first batch of hundred to distribute by dragon, and then Tagetarl drops another hundred at the Runner Station for immediate distribution, managing not to give away his recognition of Pinch in the process. He distributes the facts he knows, and hears that the Luddite faction is claiming that the comet is the fault of AIVAS and that the dragonriders let it strike rather than stop it.

I note that both of those accusations could be true, because we don't know the extent of how much AIVAS calculated other orbital bodies in relation to pushing the Red Star out, and we don't know the rules regarding dragons and time travel enough to be able to disprove either contention. It is...unlikely, given the narrative's position, that either of those are true, but the comments section had reasonable speculation about the true motives of the AI while it was operational, and there hasn't been anything, aside from our knowledge that the AI was correct because Jaxom jumped in time to confirm it, that definitively says the AI was both correct and benevolent.

As it is, the narrative shifts back to F'lessan, and he invites several dragonriders displaced by the flood to stay at Honshu while everyone recovers. Then he pops back to the displaced population that Lady Medda and Binness are running with extra supplies to help them reset, while trading a little light banner with Medda, who has suggested to F'lessan that in her younger years, she might have had a dragonrider or two in her bed. After reporting their safety back at Landing, F'lessan heads to Honshu to prepare for guests.

> To F'lessan's dismay, Mirrim was already there, and had organized the couples who were holding a little north of the Weyrhold. He had thought her safely stuck at Landing. He should have known better. He should also be grateful to her--or try to act if he were--though she still tended to give orders to him. Very soon after his arrival, he was genuinely glad she had come. She was the one who had organized food and there was succulent meat grilling on the main terrace for the many Monaco Weyr riders who had taken up his invitation. Tai was one of them.

So, why _wouldn't_ Mirrim give orders to F'lessan? She's a Weyrwoman, after all. Or at least the weyrmate of a Weyrleader. Unless F'lessan is still far too hung up on the kitchen girl who Impressed a green to recognize her status, which would very much be in line with the thinking of plenty of bronze riders. But, of course, if she's useful, then she's okay.

_[In the very last of the Todd-and-Anne books, we're going to see Xhinna, someone who has had a secondary role throughout all of the narratives focused on Fiona, end up in a situation where she needs to take command, by dint of being one of two people with fully-grown dragons, and her dragon is technically the higher-ranking of the two. Despite Xhinna not having a whole lot of experience at running a Weyr from the command level, she's been in charge of herding groups of children, she has excellent survival and safety instincts, and she's blessed with a decent time sense, so when they have to do some temporal hopping, she can achieve it properly. Xhinna does fine at leadership, even though she's scared out of her gourd that she's going to get them all killed. And then, when people of higher rank arrive to take over the leadership, they keep trying to put Xhinna in charge of other people, but without the authority and backing she would need to be confident that her commands are going to be obeyed and not reversed by those who outrank her. It's an improvement, at least in the sense that some of the command staff aren't behaving like the Son of the Benden Weyrleader here and completely discounting Xhinna's abilities because she's a girl, and only useful when she's doing something that they personally benefit from, but one of the main antagonists of Zhinna's command is a brown rider who's a shithead to everyone and especially to her, and is allowed to be that by the people in charge, rather than all of them coming down on him and telling him to respect the rank, even if he thinks he shouldn't because of her color dragon being underneath his. We'll get to that in some amount of time, but it's disappointing to find that the authors believe that treating Xhinna much like Mirrim is an okay thing to do.]_

F'lessan would love to show Tai the observatory and it's massive telescope, but they're both too tired to make the climb (and they don't have the technology to boot the telescope back up again, anyway). Instead, he startles her accidentally, and then probes her knowledge of the starry sky, and then they all go off to bed, after F'lessan dangles the promise of Tai being able to see through his binoculars some other night. These subtle tests and his irritation at Mirrim suggest to me that F'lessan has somewhat of a problem with competent women, unless they're pretty and he's interested in them.

As it is, that's the end of Part 2. Part 3 is aftermath, and it should be very interesting to see how the continent recovers from having been laid to waste by a tsunami.


	9. Picking Up The Pieces

Last time, dragons finished helping get refugees settled and surveying the damage caused by the tsunami. F'lessan opened his home to several riders and their dragons who are displaced from Monaco Bay Weyr. And now comes the part where everyone has to rebuild.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 3: Segments I, II, III, IV, : Content Notes: Rape, PTSD, stalking**

(Honshu, 1.10.31)

F'lessan wakes up to a request from Ramoth to return to Benden, and after a quick shower (!), he heads to grab klah and stumbles into Mirrim dressing Tai down for having gone to get the pelts instead of saving humans during the evacuation. Tai fiercely protests, saying that if she went back for something, it would have been books and notes, and Golanth provides witness that Zaranth was never away from him during the rescue. Mirrim is undeterred, though, but F'lessan tells Mirrim to leave off, and then "took a menacing step toward Mirrim who unexpectedly gave ground."

Let's think about that for a moment. F'lessan is currently host to Mirrim and is now threatening physical violence toward her. Mirrim is already upset about what she perceives to be a lack of duty. So the fact that he's a bronze rider probably means that if he attacks her, everyone will assume she deserved it, and because it's Mirrim, they will probably believe it doubly so, since the opinion was that T'gellan tamed Mirrim to something more like what they expect a woman to be. The whole thing is very much resting on the threat of violence in so many different ways and exposes how terrible dragonrider society still is. I also wonder if that menacing gesture might be a trigger for Mirrim, from her time before Impression, and possibly even some afterward. Tai pointed out that green riders are often seen as targets by bronze riders. Before T'gellan, Mirrim might have been in Tai's boat. _[Almost certainly was, and continues to be, really, because of the attitudes on display toward Mirrim in previous books and toward green riders in general.]_

A large part of the next bits of the narrative is F'lessan having to explain that dragons could not avert the comet strike, that Thread still falls because the Red Star dragged it along with it, and how waves could cause such destruction. It still hasn't been explained to our satisfaction why they can't stop the comet strike.

After having to do all that explaining, F'lessan is determined to figure out how dragonriders can stay in the business of planetary protection in the After. He thinks a lot of that will have to do with getting a clearer picture of objects in the skies of Pern and resurrecting the old telescopes and possibly learning how to send up a satellite array so that ships can have a better picture of their cosmic neighborhood. And then schemes how to get the necessary components and expertise to build a computer that will run the Honshu telescope.

The narrative then switches to Circle Runner Station, 1.18.31, where two late arriving guests get to hear the story of the big celestial object that left a giant crater when it impacted a very long time ago. The not-accented strangers spin out rumors about relationships between then and now, and talk disparagingly of the AI and what a terrible deed it was to alter the traditions and the Red Star. Which puts the runner that greeted them at unease enough that he sends them on to bed and then places them as the people that waylaid a Runner on the trace and asked them to deliver something (which they paid proper price for), rather than coming to a station and having it correctly logged in. _[Which, presumably, is how the propaganda gets delivered and circulated without records being present for it, especially if it's coming from "hill-folk" areas that the Runners know wouldn't actually come to a station because it would be too close to the things they hate to expose themselves to. All the same, suspicious packages from unknown people sounds like the sort of thing that should be commented on, or would be asked to be commented on as soon as the information started circulating about how seditious people are trying to use the Runner system to deliver libelous materials to their co-conspirators.]_

The narrative bounces to the Harper Hall, where Pinch has been trying to track some material shipments and listen in on specific conversations, but since nobody has a fire-lizard ("which proved that fire-lizards wouldn't come to just anyone who fed them", according to Pinch, so that's why they're not the universal carriers, I guess) and Pinch can't get close enough to eavesdrop without being noticed, there's not much to report.

Sebell is up to his ears in petitions, and the narrative would like us to believe the following has always been part of Oceania, err, Pern:

> Traditionally, all petitions presented at Turnover were forwarded to the Harper Hall and read by a special group of journeymen and masters who determined which were urgent enough to be submitted to the Council at Telgar on the first of the Third month. Some of the petitions should have been handled at the Hold level. However, if there were sufficient complaints brought against major or minor Holders, the Council was the best place to decide if the matter should be investigated further. Pinch was often assigned to get specific information.

Because the Harpers have always been advocates for the petitions of the least powerful to the most powerful. It's why they spend so much time talking about those small people to everyone that will listen and visibly taking the side of the oppressed against their oppressors. _[And why they spend so much time in outreach to the "hill-folk" and the outerlying areas that aren't as accepting of Harper teaching to try and forge an understanding of why people are refusing them and to see if they can find a compromise curriculum that will get people literate and taught, even if it means sacrificing the ability to indoctrinate them.]_

Pinch and Sebell talk about the people Pinch sketched in an earlier segment. The woman (later identified as Fourth) apparently washed out of Healer training, then petitioned to receive her Hold as the eldest. Since the father explicitly said she was to get nothing, that went nowhere. The others aren't yet recognizable. Pinch mentions the Runner network is still receiving requests and payments to disseminate Luddite propaganda, points out with a little glee that the only windows that shattered from the shock wave of the impact were Norist-cast (Morilton's new glass survived just fine), and would like to know if the original exiles were killed in the tsunami flood. Sebell nocomments. (Also, older glass is more brittle and more easily shattered.)

Pinch is dismissive of Fourth's reasoning for being in the group.

> "She wants to lead and she hasn't hit the personality for it. She's too concerned about doing things the old way, the right way, the way she was taught that ought to be the way **everyone** does it." Pinch paused. "Too hidebound to know the color of her own pelt."

None of the other characters get nearly as strong a dressing-down as that.

_[And quite the contrast with Xhinna later, who is being pushed really hard to lead by everyone, starting with Fiona arranging for her to get a dragon, despite the fact that she's not really on board with striking out into the unknown and forging herself a completely new path and that she would much rather defer to the higher-colored dragonriders on any sort of important decisions because she knows she's out on the end of a very stretched rope and there are plenty of people on either side with scissors that would happily cut her line if they got the opportunity.]_

Sebell finds it more than a bit funny that the technological faction is developing and using ever-greater amounts of tech to try and keep out the anti-tech factions, and Pinch lays in with his own thoughts about what the Ancients wanted.

> "I've read enough in Aivas's historical files to feel that Pern will never be in danger of becoming over-technical. Takes too long to develop the skills needed, except in special instances like the digital locks, and we certainly don't have the production systems the Ancients had. As a population, we have been conditioned to this slower, more methodical rhythm of living and only a very small portion will ever feel the urge to aspire to Aivasian heights."

Says the person who did not study the period of industrialization that happened on Terra not too soon after several of the recreated technologies of Pern came into being. And that was without any external faction or planet-destroying force in existence.

Further discussions have to wait, including the question of "what do dragonriders do when things fall from the sky?" that seems to be on everyone's mind, by the appearance of Robse. And the narrative flutters away to Benden Weyr, where unexpected guests are arriving. 

It's M'ran and Pilgra, Weyrleaders of High Reaches, come to talk that they are ready for retirement, and want to soothe any lingering doubts about "deserting" by talking to and getting assurance from the Benden Weyrleaders. G'dened is still hanging on at Ista, convinced there will be a Tenth Pass all the same, but these two are ready to retire. They've marked out where they want to live out their lives, so the Benden Weyrleader pulls out registration documents and starts filling out a deed for them to have as their proof of ownership. A few witness signatures later, and it's all done, with a side remark about how reading and understanding the Charter is so important, because it sets forth the terms that someone needs to move themselves and establish a new hall or hold.

I might take a small moment to chuckle about how literacy has now apparently become such an important thing, after all that time Clisser spent trying to distill knowledge down into the most basic that can be learned in song.

Anyway, the matter continues with the Benden Weyrleaders deciding to accompany the retiring leaders to help them settle in and to smooth over any issues that might appear with their retirement. First, to High Reaches, to announce and pack, and there wouldn't be anything interesting here, except that the perversity of the narrative manages to shine through, even in the mundane.

> Yasith's rider was Neldama, weyrborn in High Reaches twenty-five Turns before, and twelve Turns younger than the oldest of the queenriders. So she was of this Pass, which, in Lessa's estimation, meant fewer problems. Not exactly a pretty girl--attractive enough to rate a long look from [the Benden Weyrleader]--with green eyes that looked right at a speaker and a considerate, sensible manner as she set about collecting the items that Pilgra said she'd wanted to pack.

Tell me again why the attractiveness of the queen rider has anything to do with her ability to run the Weyr. It seems very much like all of the characters in these stories judge someone else based on their attractiveness as much as their competence, and that's a terrible idea. _[Then again, we haven't really been given a whole lot of "what does the Weyrwoman do?" that couldn't be handled by a headwoman or someone else, save, in the Fiona and Lorana books, that a Weyrwoman is responsibile for managing the morale of the Weyr by never showing any emotional state other than happiness or hope or other such positive things. So picking a Weyrwoman on whether or not most of the riders think she's bangable is probably the actual criterion, plus or minus what bronze catches her.]_

Back to F'lessan and Tai, 1.20.31, where F'lessan is grousing about everyone asking what the dragonriders are going to do to prevent the next celestial object from falling on them. He's also planting saplings sent by Paradise River to help restart the ecosystem at this particular hold (and, incidentally, helping shield against the next giant water wave or the soil being spirited away).

> Planting was not work most riders would volunteer to do but, when F'lessan saw Tai's was the only name on that list, he added his. He had done very well getting on work teams with Tai, mostly jobs as backbreaking and thankless as this, waiting until he saw where she was going to spend her spare hours before he signed up.

So, F'lessan, how do you think Tai is going to react to the fact that **_you're stalking her_**. Not that the narrative believes anything of the sort.

> She was willing enough--even eager--to discuss their mutual interest in astronomy. They were sometimes the only dragonriders on such sites. She seemed to know many of the more isolated cot holders and was welcomed warmly. The two dragonriders had been shown where to find tools, where fresh water could now be obtained, and what was available for their lunch.

I'm going to read Tai's eagerness to talk about astronomy as deflection so that F'lessan doesn't get onto other topics that Tai will definitely not want to talk about with her Stalker With A Crush. And that they're the only dragonriders around means that F'lessan could probably get away with anything he wanted, and Tai's account would be dismissed, both because "wimmins, amirite?" and because "she's a green rider, she wanted it."

The work is exhausting, and F'lessan remarks that he enjoys restoring things in one of their breaks in the planting, which gets them on the subject of Honshu, and the binoculars that F'lessan has been letting Tai borrow and use at night. Tai finally asks to see the observatory, and F'lessan promises to take her there when they're both not flat exhausted from work. He also notes that their dragons are close enough to be touching (which is apparently odd).

> He'd had a few ideas of his own but with a personality as reserved as Tai's, he deliberately kept his manner as casual as possible.  
>  [...astronomy helps keep tensions low and make Tai feel like she's contributing...]  
>  Today, certainly tomorrow, the very last displaced riders would be gone to new quarters. As far as he knew, Tai had not found any. She might have, when he was at Benden; he hadn't wanted to appear to be keeping a watch on her. And Zaranth.

They share a space, he signs up to go where she is after she chooses, he teases her about her observations, but he doesn't want to give off the impression that he's keeping tabs on her, so he doesn't ask what she does when he's gone to Benden. Yeah, still totally not stalking her. [/sarcasm]

There's also a segment which introduces some amount of chicken-and-egg to the situation. It would be nice if we had studies and science at work as to how much dragons and riders influence each other, and whether strength of emotion is strength of influence as well.

> F'lessan did not add that Golanth was showing more and more of a proprietary interest in the green's well-being, one of the subtler reasons why he was glad Tai preferred to work away from the other dragonriders. He wasn't ready for others to notice the growing relationship between Golanth and Zaranth.

At what point did F'lessan's interest in Tai become Golanth's interest in Zaranth, and did that feed back into F'lessan becoming a stalker of Tai? Are they both mutually reinforcing each other, even as they disclaim they're doing it? It would be nice to know, but that kind of worldbuilding has always been in short supply.

F'lessan and Tai unearth trundlebugs, which gives Tai an opportunity to demonstrate how Zaranth telekinetically moves them away from her nose. Once they finish planting, Tai goes to take a shower, asks F'lessan to find her towel and clothes (he does), then strips off his own clothes while he waits for her to get done.

> Riders were not as bothered by nudity as holders or crafthall folk so he stripped down, glad to be out of the sweaty, dirty shorts. As she emerged, she toweling her body dry, she gave him a fleeting glimpse. He stepped courteously past her, into the shower, and looked around for sweetsand.

This is much more in line with what I would expect between dragonriders. It could be reconciled with the earlier not-looking, but it would take some doing.

Also, F'lessan has noticed, and continues to notice, that Zaranth is definitely displaying the coloration signs that she's about to want to mate. F'lessan has even asked Tai about Zaranth's color directly, and Tai shrugged and said nothing was weird. This makes F'lessan very nervous and suspicious, and while Golanth is more than ready to go, F'lessan makes Tai look again and see what has been plain to him.

Tai does not take this well.

> Tai gasped, eyes widening with an expression of such fear and intense loathing that F'lessan wondered just what had happened during Zaranth's other mating flights.  
>  [...F'lessan runs back through what he knows of green flights and remembers that green riders eventually choose a mate...]  
>  "Tai, did you never choose?" he cried, outraged for her as he started to close the distance between [them.] And halted. He mustn't crowd her. The others had. How much time could he give her? **How** could he soothe her?  
>  She was trembling violently, her eyes wide--not in an answer to her dragon's sensuality, but in sheer terror. She seemed to draw into herself, denying what was about to happen. Crossing her arms in a defensive position! Shards! Had previous riders raped her as their dragons twined?

I'm kind of shocked F'lessan knows the word and can apply it properly in this situation. I also think this might be the first time that mating flights aren't being portrayed as a universal good.

Also, Tai is very much displaying the signs that this is going to be mentally perilous for her. I suspect she's being triggered by it, and that explains why she isn't up to admitting what's about to happen.

> "They were all the same," she muttered. "There's no escape from them. From their..." She swallowed, trying to lick dry lips, white-faced with revulsion: her green eyes stark.  
>  "Tai, were you forced?" With those words Tai shot F'lessan a look of such fear laced with guilt that he felt his belly fall flat. "You didn't choose?" He spoke very gently, appalled. This should be the most wonderful experience: a doubled ecstasy as both dragon and rider exalted in the union. He thought he'd made it so fit those he'd partnered. The queen riders had always **known** : they had **chosen** him. With the state she was in, there was no way Tai had ever chosen. "It shouldn't be a violation. It should be a celebration for you and your dragon. The most glorious union!"  
>  "Union?" She snarled the word, the panic in her eyes telling him that mating had been far from that.  
>  How many times had Zaranth mated? How many times had she been...he struggled to find the appropriate word...violated? He knew hold and hall girls often were; it was one reason so many sought sanctuary in a Weyr.

The word, F'lessan, is rape. You yourself used it, and "violation" not a few paragraphs before. (I'm chalking it up to a mistake in editing and proofing - it can be easy to forget that you moved an earlier segment later and to not have someone catch it.)

I also really like the way that F'lessan's illusions about mating (because he's a bronze rider) are being shredded by having to confront the reality that is Tai's experiences as a green rider. We can call it good characterization that F'lessan's privileged upbringing is making it difficult for him to understand this, despite having example after example coming to the Weyr for sanctuary from the same treatment in their holds and crafthalls. F'lessan says he'll have some "well-chosen" words with Mirrim after this, still demonstrating his lack of understanding. It's likely Mirrim has suffered the same kind of fate repeatedly, and probably worse from those who thought it a perfect opportunity to put her in her place. 

It almost sounds like the author is ready to confront the idea that dragon mating is not all good and give it the hard, serious look it deserves.

Almost.

Because F'lessan never considers the course of action to get away from Zaranth once he realizes what is happening. When Zaranth launches and Golanth pursues, F'lessan doesn't consider the idea of going away and leaving Tai alone.

> Tai screamed in anguish, reaching out futilely as if she could have stopped her green.  
>  "Tai, listen to me," he said, keeping his voice light. "Let me explain how it should be." Carefully, slowly, he held out one hand but she backed away along the terrace, eyeing his hand as if even his touch would sully her. She cowered away, her green eyes frantic.  
>  "Oh, Tai, my friend, if I could, I'd stop Golanth," [...and F'lessan curses himself for not recognizing her reticence as trauma instead of shyness...] "I can't, not now when Zaranth wants him so badly."  
>  "How can she **want him**? I don't want you! Not **that** way!"  
>  [...F'lessan continues to try and convince Tai that Zaranth does want Golanth, and to reach her before the gestalt takes over...]  
>  If he couldn't reach her, she'd never realize that it needn't **be** rape. He knew he could control his human self, no matter how much he might want to revel in orgasm with Golanth.

_[Stick the double cocowhat and transition into...]_

_**You do not have a magical healing cock, F'lessan.** _

(Of course he does. We know that. But still.)

And furthermore, if you can control yourself in such a way, then the best thing for you to do is go somewhere else and masturbate to your heart's content. Tai is not giving you consent, and is not in a mental state where she **_can_** give you consent. There is no reason for you to be anywhere close to her.

And yet, F'lessan pleads with Tai to choose him as a mate. And chooses to believe that when she reaches out, that it's a sign that she has chosen him, even though he asks "Was there enough of the human there to have made a choice?"

He guides her away from the danger of falling off a terrace and gets her inside before she fully gets into the gestalt. All the while, he's murmuring about how glad he is that she chose him as a lover **_(NO, SHE DID NOT)_** and giving her kisses and gentle touches for as long as he can stay human before his own gestalt takes over. 

Then the narrative switches to F'lessan-Golanth and it reads a lot like a skeevy popular guy stalking the girl he wants, thinking she's a lot more sexual and open to him, unlike those stuck-up gold dragons. It's a really good example of what life looks like through a rape culture lens. Not that any of that was what the author intended. But it does skirt having to put on screen what the nonconsensual sex between F'lessan and Tai was like by focusing on the maybe-consensual sex between the dragons.

And then, now that it's done, and it's been done properly, Tai is totally in agreement that she chose him, and that it was much better than anything else she had experienced, and she stops F'lessan from going on a rant about how she shouldn't have been treated that way, and I'm going to take this romance trope out back, cut off its head, stake its heart, and then bury it in a very deep hole.

F'lessan blames Mirrim for prejudicing Tai against him by telling her about his reputation, and Tai defends her by saying that Mirrim told her about needing to choose, just that she didn't want any of the available suitors. Which is a thing, F'lessan, and totally believe that Mirrim would be supportive of the idea of "none of the above," even if none of the other riders there wanted it.

Tai also picks up that F'lessan has a temper, and while he downplays it as being mad on her behalf, it's something that she is likely to keep in mind. Because it's not that far of a stretch from being mad on someone's behalf to being mad at them.

The afterglow of it all winds the segment down, and I think, after that instance, we can stop with the narrative. I'm still seeing red about how this whole sequence went, how it could have been so much more, but instead turned into a story about how you can make someone fall in love with you if you ignore their trauma and have nonconsensual sex with them.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. At least on Pern.

_[This trope really needs to die. Especially because basically every time it gets invoked, the person who gets raped ends up falling deeply in love with their rapist, who shows them the way. There will be yet more people who are struggling with their upcoming vault into sexuality because of their dragons in the Todd books. They improve by not resorting to rape as the way that someone gets over their hesitation, but neither do they ever consider the possibility that someone who wants to wait can do so, and that a sensible dragonrider culture would provide for ways of people not only to have their preferred partner present when their dragons go off on the mating flight, but to have a method such that those who do not want to have sex with anyone (or anyone other than themselves) can achieve this as well, rather than having to be subjected to sex they don't want from people they don't want to have sex with. Pern hates consent with a passion usually reserved for poorly-cooked Brussels sprouts.]_


	10. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Last time, F'lessan and Golanth became (at least in my opinion) stalkers of Tai and Zaranth, which culminated in Zaranth having a mating flight that completely triggered Tai, based on her past experience, and F'lessan applying a magical healing cock to wipe away the trauma and get them both to fall in love with each other. *ptui* The Honshu Weyrholder and Tai are still in bed, but the action shifts to the Harper Hall.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 3: Segments V, VI, VII, VIII: Content Notes: Continued Consent Violations**

(Harper Hall, 1.28.31)

Pinch startles Sebell by slipping into his office unheard, and the two talk about how it's likely the missing prisoner is the same as the scarred man leading the Luddite faction, and they both come to the conclusion that it's one of Norist's sons that's the missing person. They speculate that he might have regained his hearing, although they don't necessarily treat it seriously yet. When Pinch returns from a chat with the prison warden, they take it as an assumption that his hearing has returned, and that it is one of Norist's that leads the faction.

They also mention that the meteorite strikes have plenty of people assuming and petitioning the dragonriders, as the de facto air force, to stop the next strike from happening, even though meteorites can outpace dragons for speed and heat.

And then it's back to Honshu (2.1.31) for Tai opening up to the Honshu Weyrholder about her past and astronomy, and him asking her about Zaranth's ability to move things. Which eventually ends up with the Honshu Weyrholder throwing a bowl at Zaranth to provoke her, having determined that only things that will irritate her will engage her ability, and having it reappear on the tray he threw it from.

> "You may **not** throw things at my dragon!"  
>  "It **was** aggravating of me but look how she reacted."  
>  It took him time and much coaxing to calm Tai down, a pleasurable enough activity since her body responded to his deft caresses even if she did not wish it to.  
>  [...Tai suggests a blanket and wine for them, once "she did see what he had been trying to prove", and practice with trundlebugs for Golanth...]  
>  Carefully he lifted the thong of the binoculars from her neck and put them to one side and practiced making love to her. That was the most important reason he had brought the mattress out to the terrace and suggested they lie down and challenge each other at identifying stars.

So much for that new leaf you were claiming, bronze rider. You violated Tai's consent and are continuing to do so, since I still haven't heard her actually say yes to any of your caresses or anything else. I hope Mirrim gets to tear you a new one while everyone else watches. _[She won't. A least not on the page.]_

The narrative, of course, didn't see anything wrong with this scenario, and it's now moving forward with Zaranth teaching Golanth how to move trundlebugs. He splats the first one, causing everyone to retreat hastily at the smell. The second time, Golanth manages to not kill them, but he moves them a very long distance away, proving other dragons can do it, but they need to figure out the finesse necessary.

Then it's on to Fort, where Tenna's return means she's asked by Torlo to arrange a meeting with Haligon. There's time enough to note there are electric lights outside now, that Tenna and Haligon are still in an "It's Complicated" relationship, that Groghe is losing a step, now that he's eighty-nine, and that there's still a (warranted) fear that hand radios will supplant Runners. The best the narrative can do is have Tenna be reassured that it won't happen for a very long time.

Torlo delivers news that the Runners have traced the origins of the messages that the Luddite faction is using to communicate, and that they tend to stop Runners on the traces, rather than coming into the stations. Torlo mentions Pinch probably wants to know this, making Haligon blanch that Torlo knows about Pinch, and suggests that Haligon send a fire-lizard immediately to Tagetarl to be on his guard against an attack. Haligon goes to see the Harpers by a secret staircase right after dropping Tenna off, and Beauty heads off to deliver the message.

The narrative shifts to the Printer Hall, where Tagetarl notes the arrival of the fire-lizard as confirmation of the hints dropped previously by Rosheen and the way that Stationmaster Arminet had discreetly discussed his security measures a few days before. The note itself is cryptic:

> Runners confirm trouble at Wide Bay. Guard the Hall. Assistance planned.

Tagetarl runs through possibilities of what might be making trouble, what kind of trouble, and what assistance might be planned, but can't get to any conclusions.

At least one part of the assistance turns out to be having the Hall under the watch of a flock of fire-lizards, summoned by the local queen, Ola, after Beauty likely left instructions. Another ends up being Pinch, who arrives with "It's me" after almost being splashed by Tagetarl wielding a hot klah pot. Tagetarl corrects his grammar, and then Pinch points out the likely entry point of the Luddites (the same one he went in), commends Tagetarl on the fire lizard defense force, and introduces his companions, each of whom has brought a bucket of flame-retardant varnish for the wood bits of the Hall to apply.

Tagetarl doesn't understand why he would be a target, and Pinch explains that the written word has truth-establishing power, and so the reports, books, and other things he prints can fight the rumors and stories that are being passed around by the other faction that want things to go back to the way they were. Yes, even with all of the advances in medicine that can cure what used to kill, and the ability to put knowledge down in a more fixed and durable form, Pinch tells Tagetarl.

_[Except that Pern has always been a literate culture, or we're going to learn in a later book retconning that Harpers ahve always tried to teach letters and numbers and otherwise to be able to read and write, even if they're also providing a strong oral component in the form of the Teaching Songs. So there wouldn't necessarily be a veneration of the written word as the absolute truth among the common population, especially since they can see all of the things that are being printed, both from the conspiracy theorists and from the Harper Hall. Just because something's written doesn't make it true. (Admittedly, that's a hard thing for people in our time to remember, especially with the proliferation of the World Wide Web and further technological advances that allow for anything that's been created digitally or is being distributed digitally to be potentially suspect.) The thing that's the danger from the Printing Hall is the ability to disseminate things quickly, so rumors that have been started can either be stomped or spread like wildfire, depending on whether the Printers want to encourage or discourage the rumors. Now that I think about this more, it makes better tactical sense to take over the Printer Hall, rather than burn it to the ground, but that would be using the thing you hate to more effectively hate it, and I can see some people very concerned about the traditional way of life thinking of that as too much cognitive dissonance, even if other groups in teh past have been using things from the Printers in their work.]_

Tagetarl panics that he doesn't have enough people to ward off an attack, and tailspins further as Pinch points out to him that he's probably been helping the enemy get the layout of the land by indulging their curiosity to see the process at work, and likely telling them about the opposition they'd be up against, too. Pinch seems very confident that his extra muscle will help with that, as well the flame-retardant.

There's also this part, as Pinch is explaining the plan to stop the Luddites.

> "We've arrived timely, too, since Beauty was here and my suspicions have been confirmed by the Runners." He grinned brightly at Tagetarl. "Dragonriders aren't the only ones who can be where they're needed when they're needed."  
>  Tagetarl's jaw dropped at what was almost a profane remark from a harper.

And here we are again at the idea that the nominally non-religious Pernese have something sacred (dragonriders) to be profane against. Pinch is being deliberately irreverent, either about fighting Thread or time travel (and likely both), and this goes back to the theory of mind problem commenters have pointed out in relation to which characters know what facts and secrets. I have no trouble with Pinch knowing what is supposed to be a closely-guarded secret (except when it isn't) of the dragonriders, but it's _Tagetarl_ commenting on the possible profanity, which suggests that either Tagetarl knows the secret and is surprised at Pinch's casual attitude (less likely) or that Pinch is being flippant about dragonriders and his irreverence for the planet's saviors is strongly socially inappropriate (more likely). But I can't tell which it is, because I can't rely on previously established norms about what is secret and what is not.

Pinch is still casual about the possible danger, tells Tagetarl not to notice him, but to send up provisions for the extra people, and definitely not to sample anything offered in exchange for books, just in case, which makes Tagetarl panic even more. Pinch demonstrates a few calls that will be used for communication before going out to lend a hand.

There's also this continued part where Pinch mentions all of the new people are experienced with brushes, with implications of knowing more than just the brushes they're using to paint on the fire-retardant, but Tagetarl can't figure out why those people are so familiar to him.

The next segment goes back to Honshu, so I'm going to stop, because I've had basically enough of what's going on there for this post. Back again next week.


	11. Reparations

Last time, Tagetarl learned about and received reinforcements for a suspected Luddite strike on his hall. Golanth learned how to move things he wasn't physically touching, and the Honshu Weyrholder proceeded as if he had obtained actual consent from Tai to begin a relationship with her.

**The Skies of Pern: Part 3: Segments IX, X, XI, XII, XIII: Content Notes: Continued Consent Violations,**

(Honshu Hold, 2.9.31)

The frame for this segment is that Golanth's rider has sufficiently gathered equipment and programs to restart the Honshu telescope. He wants Tai to be there when it goes online. Since this segment is from Tai's point of view, we get some information about what she thinks of the whole affair.

> He had a tendency to jump in different directions, as if he enjoyed catching her off-balance. He probably did. She'd thought that, once Golanth had flown Zaranth, [his rider] would disengage from her, perhaps more kindly than others had. In the contrary, he had insisted that she remain at Honshu, that she choose a room of her own--though they mainly shared the large one he preferred, [...] He encouraged her to talk about her interest in astronomy and managed to bring texts from the Archives that she was certain Master Esselin did not realize he had borrowed. He was very conscientious about returning them.

Given what Tai has experienced at the hands of other dragonriders, the offer of safety and interest from someone who also likes keeping her off-balance sounds like a proper nightmare. I would expect Tai to be in a fight-flight state about this person that didn't obtain her consent and is signaling very hard that he wants her to stay with him, possibly with the threat of force to keep her there.

_[I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually the freeze response of fight-flight-freeze, since every single time beforehand that some bronze rider has wanted to have his way with her, he hasn't actually cared enough to get her consent before doing what he wanted with her, and presumably, neither fight nor flight has worked for Tai, so it might very well be "if I freeze and let him do what he wants, I won't suffer any worse consequences for it." Which seems to have actually worked for her, so it might be the thing she does because it works in that she doesn't get anything worse. It still means that the Son of the Benden Weyrleader is a giant jerk and an asshole for behaving this way, swapping back and forth between lovebombing and delighting in making her jump or be frightened.]_

> A sparkle in his eye was all the warning she had before he swung her up in his arms and twirled around. She clung to his shoulders, not fearing that he would drop her, but so she had this excuse to touch him. She wasn't yet accustomed to either his spontaneity or his preference for touching but she was learning to welcome them.

_[And that's a cocowhat.]_

Um, no. Given Tai's past, I would believe "Tai screamed in terror and had a panic attack and/or flashbacks" at being touched with no warning, not "Oh, this is strange yet pleasant." I don't care how good the sex supposedly is, it doesn't magically heal traumas like that.

We're also supposed to believe that Tai doesn't see him in any sort of threatening way.

> Over the last few sevendays, she had seen how seriously he took responsibilities, exuding an optimism that could fire those around him, and how he never shirked tasks, like the Benini Hold planting, which he could have delegated to another rider. He was certainly not the casual reckless weyrbred lad Mirrim had described.

Except there's higher-than-chance odds, based on what we saw from the way Golanth's rider pursued Tai, that it's not a sense of duty that propels him in these manners. _[Because, after all, he's still there with her, and otherwise trying to make sure he stays close to her all the time.]_

There's more flirting and swooning that I still find strongly out of character for Tai, and a discussion about how the felines might be intruding into human spaces again, despite their deterrence efforts like dragon dung/firestone mash concoctions that make the place smell strongly enough of dragons to be discouraging to predators. And more speculation about why Honshu was abandoned, as well as the run of spectacular good fortune that was needed to get all the power generating materials repaired and the components online so that this moment of bringing the telescope back could happen, including the thought that AIVAS might have had a sense of humor (Piemur was certain of it, Jancis was horrified at the concept).

Zaranth also frightens Tai by swooping down out of the sky without warning, encouraged by Golanth to do it and other "bad habits" that Zaranth enjoys.

There's a lot of "the sincerity of Golanth's rider makes him endearing to Tai" as they haul in the final components, hook it all up, and run calibration on the scope to make sure it all works appropriately, which it does. The narrative is trying very hard to make us not think of all the ways that F'lon's sons and grandson have been terrible to women, even if the degree of terrible changes from person to person. And the narrative has us contrast what Tai observes with what Mirrim has said about Golanth's rider, to try and further convince us that Mirrim doesn't know what she's talking about. The likely truth is that Tai doesn't have enough experience to know, given that her previous experiences with relationships were all overtly terrible and traumatic, and that Mirrim could still be absolutely right about him, if something happens where he no longer behaves in this new way. _[We won't get to test this, though, because what will happen soon enough will make the narrative swing immediately in a direction of "but Tai clearly loves him as much as he loves her and they're going to be perfect for each other" by burdening her with his care. So that instead of being suspicious of him and his motives, instead we're supposed to be sympathetic to his plight and be glad that he has a woman like Tai to take care of him.]_

For now, the focus is on the stars, and that's where they leave it to get back to the promised assault on the Printer Hall. Tagetarl is the viewpoint character, and he's been doing his best to try and act natural and normal. He's also kept what Pinch has said from Rosheen, trying not to worry her. We also get useful insight into how Our Heroes view their opposition.

> How did you tell an Abominator from any other ordinary man or woman? It was the set of their minds: their self-appointed mission to deny choice to others, to neutralize all the useful things that were already in operation. [...] Any thinking person would examine what was sensible to add to what Pern already had--like printing, but he required no one to read or buy his books: that was their decision. For all the amazing diversity of processes and products that the Ancients had used, just learning how to faithfully execute some of the designs was enough to discourage making the unnecessary. As Master Menolly said--and he knew Sebell basically agreed with her--not everything and anything new meant an improvement. But people should make that decision themselves, not have it arbitrarily denied.

Tagetarl sounds almost like a tech bro at this point. He doesn't grasp the ways that he and the ruling cabal of the planet are making decisions and denying people choice themselves. Of course, since he's one of the good guys, his choices are good and progressive for everyone, including the underclass that nobody talks about, and the servant class that only seems good for a joke. And he washes his hands neatly of the whole thing by proclaiming that all he's doing is providing things for others to use or not use, as they want to. Never mind anything about how his books print a single version of the world and don't allow for alternatives. Or how technology is fundamentally changing everyone's lives and pulling them toward something different than what they had before. Or the still very valid case to be made that the descendants aren't meant to have that kind of tech at all.

But this other faction is bad because they destroy the choice of others to participate or not in the world that's being shaped for them without their participation and input. If Pern really was Rand's wet dream and every person was self-sufficient, the line that everyone can participate or not would be much more accurate. In this feudal arrangement, Tagetarl may believe every word of it, but he's lying.

_[As we've discovered in the 21st c. of Terra, platforms claiming to be neutral and not to be interested in the content that's being spread on the platform very easily and quickly become places that have all sorts of terrible content on them, because people will want to take advantage of the power of a platform and distribution of their material. Content moderation is going to happen with the official, Harper-moderated platforms, because the Harpers won't have anything to do with something heterodox. Which will work up until whomever the Pernese equivalent of Rupert Murdoch is builds or gets his hands on a press of his own, and then there will be all sorts of "alternative" content that will feed the audiences that are tired of the Harper monopoly or that want to do the equivalent of shitposting. Someone will get some theses nailed to the door of the Harper Hall, and then it'll be a free-for-all in the information wars. Which is to say, with the attitude that he has, Tagetarl and the Printers are eventually going to be very surprised and caught unawares at the presence of a rival press that says things that are much more believable and reinforce the prejudices of the people, truth value be damned.]_

Pinch breaks Tagetarl's thoughts by alerting him to the presence of danger, which in this case is the leader of our Luddite faction, come to claim the book he ordered a sevenday ago. He pays appropriately, with Weaver's marks, calling Tagetarl a "Master Harper" in the process (Tagetarl immediately says "MasterPrinter", even though he is a Harper of Mastery rank) all the while clearly casing the place, and "took the Ballads from Tagetarl's hand much as one would grasp something dirty or repulsive," which further distresses Tagetarl. When there's a shipment of wine delivered to him that he knows he didn't order, Tagetarl is ready to blow the whole operation, but remembers what he's been told and manages to accept the shipment without arousing suspicion. And he gets mistitled again.

> "Shipment for Master Harper?" the wineman announced, lifting his hand for attention.  
>  "MasterPrinrer," Tagetarl corrected for the second time in a few minutes and wondered why no one could give him his proper rank today.

This is supposed to tip the reader off that this is probably a co-conspirator, but I also want it to be a mark that the opposition understands that the divisions between Harpers and Printers are largely artificial, and that they want a free press and for the Harpers to be honest about the stranglehold they have on information and approved publishing.

Tagetarl knows he's facing a conspirator, and tries to get more information out of him about who sent the wine, gets a drudge(-Pinch) to carry the skin in so that the wine merchant doesn't get inside, tries to nose around in the cart himself (nothing doing), and asks for a deliberately inferior vintage of Benden white to see if the conspirator knows anything about wine, and seems satisfied that he does not when the wine merchant doesn't bat an eye at the request.

At no point during this entire sequence does anyone get named, not the person who sent it ("The Lord Holder"), nor the person picking up the book (because it's not known yet), or the wine merchant. If someone wasn't on the alert to an attack, everything would be plausibly deniable, and also not really interested in arousing suspicion. The opposition has sophistication to their operations _[, and that should worry the spies and agents that are Tagetarl's support.]_

Tagetarl gets to observe Pinch test the wine with material that is apparently supposed to determine if stream water is drinkable, and the wine reacts poorly, so they hide it away. Rosheen arrives at that point, notices Pinch, and is finally clued in on everything. She's mostly upset that they had guests and she didn't make enough for dinner.

After finishing their part of toasting the health of who brought them the drinks, everything closes up, Rosheen gives Tagetarl some amount of grief about hiding things from her, and the two settle in to wait for the attack.

The attackers have trouble getting in the front door, given that it's fastened and barred in a near trick lock. They can't climb the gate because they're isn't enough space for them to fit in between the door and the archways. Someone who did get in as an advance party tries to torch some buildings, but the retardant holds true.

Eventually a big man heads in to break into the hold attached to the hall, and manages not to wake the dead by muffling the sound of the glass breaking. Tagetarl moves to club the man when he gets close, only to hit Rosheen's iron pan instead of the man's head, because she tripped the intruder with the broom before walloping him with the pan before Tagetarl made his move.

And that is basically the only action Tagetarl has for the night, because once the intruders manage to knock down the doors to the hall with brute force, they find themselves on the receiving end of a swarm of angry fire-lizards that drive them into a net trap, where they are captured, and the arrival of a dragon in their courtyard. It's Ruth, with Jaxom.

Then the mob summoned to help the Print Hall arrives and has to be let in, only to be disappointed that all the fun has already happened and they're here only to witness what happens afterward. They're more than ready to dispense justice by dragging the net behind a ship and leaving the lot to drown, but Jaxom has other ideas, and we get to see what the Charter supposedly recommends.

> "According to the Charter," and Jaxom swung slowly around to the audience, his eyes seeming to touch everyone in the front ranks, "by which we have been well governed for the past twenty-five hundred Turns, a Lord Holder, a Weyrleader, and a Master of any Craft may hold a trial."

This trial, however, is not like the previous one, where there was at least the whisper of an adversarial system. It really is a trial in name only and would be better characterized as "can dispense whatever justice they want." There is a part where the captured intruders are asked for their names, ranks, and affiliations, but since nobody volunteers any of those things, the trial turns over the matter of justice to the offended Master Printer and Master Harper. Tagetarl wants answers, but the slogans he gets in reply inflames the mob enough that they're ready to haul the lot off and drown them anyway. (Apparently, the books themselves are abominations, even if they contain traditional material, because they use new techniques.)

Since someone in the group identifies the whole group as Luddites, they receive the same treatment as the group before them - exile to an island only known to N'ton. Exile, being the death sentence that it is, finally breaks the line of the Luddites, and the mob is more than happy to help apprehend any who try to escape them.

> "And what are these established procedures of yours, Lord Jaxom?" Captain Venabil demanded, heaving from his exertions.  
>  "A Lord Holder, a Weyrleader, he a MasterCraftsman may enforce any Council decree," Jaxom said. "It is in the Charter, if anyone cares to check. We must do so before sufficient witnesses."  
>  "WE WITNESS." "WITNESSED!" "WE WERE HERE!" "DROWNING'S EASIER. QUICKER!" "EXILE 'EM!" "AWAY WITH THEM!"  
>  Raising his arms, Jaxom faced the crowd. "Those of you who do not care to be witnesses to the judgment of this incident may step back without prejudice."  
>  Later Tagetarl was to remember day no one stepped away.  
>  "Then the decree of the Council will be enforced. Weyrleader N'ton, you may send for assistance," the Lord Holder of Ruatha said formally.

There is an abrupt mood shift after this sentence, as apparently the mob (with Captain Venabil as leader) that was more than willing to drown the intruders is suddenly struck with the gravitas of sending people away to live their lives out with only themselves as company. The mood gets very somber, and the Captain respectfully salutes the three men who are making decisions about other people's lives, which is never easy, the text tells us.

_[These are the people who were more than willing to drown the lot by dragging them behind a ship, but apparently the reality of exile produces a somber mood in all of them and they lost the riotous mentality they had before. This must be some aspect of a numinous power of being in the presence of one's Betters that commands respect and gravitas. The contrast that we'll see in the next books, where people can be Shunned out of society if they do anything the local lord doesn't like, is pretty stark. But also, there's no reason for the lord's justice to be treated so much more seriously than the mob's justice that they were ready to engage with. In fact, I would have expected the pronouncement of exile to get the mob entirely ready to "help" prepare all of the prisoners for their sending-off.]_

After the disappearing of the attackers, we find out that Jaxom might have condemned Dorse, his step-brother (and consummate bully, we hasten to remind everyone) to exile, because nobody identified themselves. And that Pinch realizes the leaders were not part of the group that attacked, so the problem isn't solved yet. Tagetarl is encouraged to write a concise summary of events (one that won't include the possibility of Dorse being among the group), and accepts help from a group of carpenters to rebuild the gates that were smashed in. Stationmaster Arminet insists on distributing that summary everywhere the Runners go, for no charge, so that there isn't a doubt about what happened this night. He calls it a "community announcement", rather than a Harper Hall one, to justify it.

There's one quick pop over to Ruatha, where Jaxom confirms to Sharra that it was Dorse in the group, and that he's having regrets over having condemned his milk-brother to exile, even though there was an opportunity for Dorse to identify himself. Jaxom and Sharra both fret a little that Dorse's presence might mean that Toric is somehow wrapped up in this revitalization, even as Sharra insists that Toric has no loyalty from any of his family and as she confirms his avarice is legendary and unlikely to stop, even when brought to heel by the Lords and Weyrleaders. _[Dorse threw his lot in with Toric, and we knew that, so it's a question really of whether Jaxom and Sharra knew that. I think they did, so while I'm not going to say it should have been any easier for Jaxom to condemn his bully to exile, I feel like the after-action justification would be easier, since "well, he put his fate in Toric's hands, so this was always how he was going to meet his end" is a really low-hanging fruit to pluck.]_

The final segment for this act and part is a meeting at Cove Hold between all the Weyrleaders, various Masters, and their guests to suggest a to what the profession of the dragonriders should be After thread - sky-watchers, building a network of the few remaining telescopes to scan the night sky for other celestial objects that might prove a threat to the planet should they touch down. Lessa is the viewpoint character. Seeing Jaxom and Sharra arrive, she wants to have a word with him about establishing a second Printer Hall so as to prevent there being a single point to attack that would destroy presses. T'gellan arrives with Talina, his Weyrwoman, and Mirrim, who Less describes thusly:

> Well, Mirrim was to be expected and, while Lessa knew the girl could be domineering and arrogant, she had great sympathy toward a fosterling she had trained.

_[Have another cocowhat, for Mirrim's sake.]_

I am again struck by the apparently universal attitude that Mirrim is terrible, which apparently even includes someone who was parental toward her before she became a rider. I have yet to see demonstrated any actual reason why someone would be upset at her _[, that isn't firmly rooted in their own prejudices about how women should act and behave, regardless of what dragon they ride or office they hold in the hierarchy. Brekke, I think, was the last person to be sympathetic to Mirrim on the page.]_

Tai's description from the Benden Weyrleader doesn't fare much better.

> "Attractive but not pretty," [he] murmured to his weyrmate after a very brief glance at [the Honshu Weyrholder]'s companion. "No wonder he's so often at Honshu now."

_[And another cocowhat, because that can't be a genuine compliment in any form.]_

What does that even _mean_? Am I supposed to read it as "Ah, she'd be good to look at when our dragons are mating, but she's definitely not a keeper" or "Oh, she's good-looking enough for someone of Asian descent, but our boy needs to find a properly beautiful blonde woman for his wife"? Or some other terrible combination somewhere? There's no way I can parse out that sentence that doesn't suggest something terrible in the assessment. _[Bless the commenters that tried, though, and suggested that it meant that Tai was a looker, but not a conventionally attractive woman, which said good things about the Son of the Benden Weyrleader's discernment and judgment in not choosing some pretty but shallow blonde bitch to shack up with. Which is either hella racist about Tai's looks or hella sexist about conventionally attractive women. There's really no result out of that statement where you can get an unqualified compliment.]_

The meeting does finally offer an explanation about why dragons can't just catch rocks in space and divert them. They're moving too fast and they're too hot to grab, according to K'van, but they also have access to computers that could probably predict reliably where a rock is going to be, and if you had a wing or Weyr of dragons convinced they can move the rock, then odds are the rock gets moved. And, given that Golanth already has finesse problems with learning how to move things outside the body, once enough bronzes get trained on the matter, they can probably stand just to the side of an object's path and shove it into a corrected orbit. Since we have yet to see an actual upper bound for the telekinesis, it's entirely possible the dragonriders could learn to throw celestial objects around. And then possibly hold the planet hostage with the knowledge that they could perform a colony drop on them at any time.

In any case, the suggestion is made that dragonriders reform themselves as the Astronomers' Craft in the After, which makes the very traditionalists among the group balk entirely at the idea, and even explaining the progress already made and the way that the telescopes would help make people believe the dragonriders are still in their traditional duties doesn't quite dent the objections. G'narish raises the theory that the comet was a reaction to the displacement of the Wanderer. Lytol shoots it down by claiming the maths were perfect and there should have been a minimum of displacements. It relies on AIVAS, though, and it's not here to be questioned. And it still assumes that the Rukbat system has no other intelligent life in it, which may not be true, either.

Showing pictures taken from Honshu of asteroids big enough to blow up the planet does get through to the traditionalists, as does pointing out the regular manufacture of binoculars makes it easy for night watch riders to scan their portion of the sky for anything unusual and the army of retired Fishers that would be more than happy to be useful training riders to watch the sky.

The observatory sites are decided, such that in addition to Landing and Honshu, Ruatha can hold an observatory and one will have to be established in the Western Continent, with riders that can watch at night and do their other jobs in the daytime. Telgar might get one as well, since J'fery thinks Larad would be open to it. G'dened is still on the question of what dragonriders will _do_ when presented with another object, but he's told that they'll think of something in time, either through research in the archives or figuring out some science to make it work. The cherry on top for most people to get on board with the new project is an offer to watch the stars at one of the various telescope sites.

And that's the third part in the book. We are clearly not going to speak of how Tai is going to get over the traumas she suffered repeatedly at the hands of her lovers, including the most recent one. We are never going to get an explanation as to why everyone hates Mirrim. And for as much as everyone wants to dismiss G'dened as a cranky old man, he does have the right question -- what happens when there's another Fireball, or worse, something bigger?

Maybe Part Four will answer these, but I doubt it very much.


	12. Forward The Future

Last time, it was proposed and adopted that dragonriders would take up the mantle of sky-watch when there was no more Thread to fight, and that three new sites for telescopes would be established so as to provide continuous coverage and observation of the sky, to spot the next celestial problem before it arrived.

And Tai continued to no longer show the signs of trauma, as if by magic.

**The Skies of Pern, Part 4, Segment I: Content Notes:**

(Honshu Weyrhold, 2.26.31 and 2.27.31)

This segment starts with Tai, who is overwhelmed at the fact that she got to talk, and people supported her points, and mentioned how much help she had been. As if, say, she was a valued, smart person instead of being seen solely as a green rider for others to let their sexual frustrations out on.

There's also the requisite Mirrim-bashing:

> When Mirrim would have marched her off to the kitchen, [the Honshu Weyrholder] had kept her by his side, to explain to the younger Weyrleaders how they established the scan, set the remote imager for timed exposures, and how to determine the significance of the images and why so many exposures of the night sky were required. Palla seemed almost as overwhelmed by the company she was in as Tai, and the two exchanged sympathetic glances. Palla was the only other young dragonrider who understood the immediate task.  
>  Then [the Honshu Weyrholder] issued the invitation for those interested to adjourn to Honshu. And eleven riders and dragons had flown to the weyrhold. That had been the heady part, especially with Mirrim present--showing off the observatory and bringing up images of the minor planets above the horizon.  
>  [...reactions to the information are varied...]  
>  Mirrim pretended interest but Tai was aware of her restlessness, so when she offered to find out what there was to eat in the weyrhold, [the Honshu Weyrholder] told her by all means to find it and serve it up. He snagged Tai by the hand.  
>  "She knows where everything is--" [he] murmured in her ear and paused significantly, "in the kitchen. Let her."  
>  Revived by baskets of bread, cheese, fruit, cold river fish, meat, and klah that Mirrim served, the spontaneous first session of Astronomy for Weyrleaders--as [he] jokingly called it--went on till well after Rigel had set.

I have some questions about this setting. Tai, for one, seems to have spontaneously inherited everyone else's distaste for Mirrim, I don't think the narrative has done nearly enough to establish the idea that Tai actively enjoys spiting Mirrim. What we have seen in terms of actual confrontation is Mirrim getting on Tai's case about saving objects instead of people, and Tai seemed cowed by it, instead of resentful or defiant.

Second, in a gathering full of Weyrleaders, Master Crafters, and so forth, I can't see any of the really high-ranking people calling time out so they can help in the kitchen. I can see Mirrim asking Tai for help, because they're the low-ranking riders and kitchen detail always goes faster when you have help. I'm sure there were many snide remarks not noted in the narrative about how Mirrim is only good for the kitchens. In a world where people are polite to each other, instead of the terribly classist way that Pern is, Mirrim would ask Tai for help in the kitchen, someone else would note that Tai has important expertise in the subject at hand, and could someone else volunteer to help Mirrim? Or at least call a break so that everyone can help in the kitchen and make some food.

That, of course, doesn't happen, and we get a telling reprise where Mirrim is getting impatient (possibly from a lack of understanding, since I don't remember Mirrim being present for any of the science classes _[that she was absolutely there for, as the commenters point out]_ ) and Tai is told specifically not to help Mirrim in the kitchen, in a way that I'm reading has heavy overtones of "that arrogant bitch needs to be put back in her place, in the kitchen, where she belongs." I might wonder why Mirrim hasn't poisoned a few people, if this is the consistent treatment she gets. (Because the people that succeed the terrible people might be even worse, I know.) _[And, now that I've had a look at how Xhinna reacts when unsupported by the people above her, it might very well be that if Mirrim does start making life merry hell for otherws because of the ways they keep treating her, she's probably the one who's going to get punished for giving them what they deserve, rather than the others being told to be nicer to Mirrim. There's a few anecdotes told to Xhinna about how people will watch someone get treated badly and have the revenge pressure build up, but then they also won't do anything when the revenge explodes and everyone gets what they deserve for being assholes. Which only works in some places, and I can't really imagine it working all that well in either the Harper Hall or in the dragonriders, but we'll talk about what happens with Kindan and Xhinna when we get to them.]_

Also tellingly, Tai is the one cleaning up after the food and is directed, after she insists that she can take the stairs, that instead she will "have enough time to put the kitchen to rights after Mirrim's been messing in it and **then** we'll both take a quick swim in the river", a thing that Tai points out (mentally) in the next sentence is effective manipulation of her. Because she apparently enjoys being told what to do and to get back into the kitchen.

Which she might! But there's been no presumption of equality at all in any of her relationships in her life, so we can't say for certain that Tai actually would do these things if she had free choice not to. The kitchen itself turns out to be another opportunity to bash Mirrim.

> All the lights were on and most of the cupboards left half ajar. There was rather more of a mess to clean up than shed've thought. Had Mirrim done this on purpose? No, Talina had been with her; Talina night be indolent but she wasn't spiteful. Mirrim still didn't believe her about the pelts.

I am again entirely unsure why there is so much written cattiness into Tai at this point. It clashes strongly with the reserved and generally amiable person we've seen before. We're supposed to like Tai and cheer for her, and we haven't seen all that much of a personality that enjoys these kinds of games and negging. And yet, when Mirrim gets involved, it's a near-universal negative opinion of Mirrim that overrides everything.

I wonder why the kitchen was left in such disarray. It could be spite, but it could equally be that the guests were calling down harassment of the kitchen demanding their food faster than it could be prepared, and there was no actual time to clean up before everyone had to leave for the night. Maybe Talina sniffed at the idea of cleaning up after herself, having "graciously" deigned to help Mirrim _[which "indolent" certainly suggests]_ , and Mirrim wasn't having the idea of cleaning it all up herself. (And maybe hoped that Tai would find a way to get the other resident of Honshu to do the cleanup, since he partook of the food.)

As things are, the humans and dragons take a wash in the river and lay down to sleep in their exhaustion, with Tai wondering

> Why was it that the tenderest of his kisses affected her more than the passionate ones--which she enjoyed, too? It was his tenderness toward her that undid her most.

Perhaps, Tai, it is because you have been starved for actual affection from anyone, repeatedly traumatized, and are now clinging to the one person who has shown a modicum of care and affection to you. You can do so much better than him, objectively speaking, but I'm not judging you on the decision to go and get as much of what you have been missing for so long. I _am_ judging him for using manipulation tactics to make you cling to him more, rather than giving you the space and support you need to find effective coping for your traumas. _[The Son of the Benden Weyrleader really doesn't fall that far from the tree, and despite the narrative doing all sorts of work to try and make us believe that he's good, or perhaps at least better than most, he's still a scumbag that using lovebombing and manipulation to get someone to stay with him.]_

The plot moves forward by putting the two riders and their dragons in the middle of a surprise feline attack, with Tai waking up right before it starts. By Zaranth flinging one of the cats away telepathically. The cats are numerous enough that they cause damage to the dragons almost immediately.

Golanth's rider flings the blankets off quickly and sufficiently enough that Tai gets tangled in them (and is this unable to join the fight immediately), Zaranth tells Golanth that finesse is not needed for the felines, the narrative points out that since their riders are also in danger, the dragons won't drop off the felines they have on them in hyperspace, and then Zaranth is basically a one-dragon wrecking crew of getting felines away, but also telekinetically zips Tai to the Honshu Weyrholder's side, where she gets one hit in by cracking the blanket into the face of one feline and covering the face of another, before she's pushed down by said Weyrholder and he continues to wrestle with a feline.

And then the dragons appear and start throwing flame indiscriminately around at the felines, much to Tai's horror. Dragons might take a roasting, she points out in her head, but humans don't. Zaranth speed-teaches the other dragons on attendance about how to telekinetically toss big cats before there's one that somehow manages to evade all the defenses and is headed straight for a vulnerable spot that could kill Golanth.

Who then tells the attending dragons to "TIME IT" in such a way that apparently there's a little bit more time for movement of some sort, and the cat that would have scored a kill shot misses it, still causing damage, before being splatted.

At which point, I say "Wait a minute," because if you're going to invoke the time travel power at this point, why not warp back to a point well before the incident begins and clear out the felines before they can attack? We still haven't yet had a situation where someone has tried to yank the course of observed time off the rails and onto another pathway. And nobody has yet told us what the rules about time travel are, either. We've had more than a few situations where we end up with a stable time loop because it turns out that the time travel has always been there, but as far as I know, the other dragons could appear before this even happened and stealthily take them out. If this is the destined timeline, then we need to know why.

As it is, all the dragons and riders are alive, although critically injured and needing significant surgery. Tai wants to see the extent of the damage, but is told fairly forcefully by Lessa and Sharra that she is not going anywhere until she's done with her own healing. Lessa quips sarcastically about Tai's reputation as "biddable" before finally convincing her to take a fellis draught and heal.

The narrative then gives us the Benden Weyrleaders fretting about the effects of the attack. Neither Golanth or his rider are likely to return to full capacity, and Lessa is a bit put out that Golanth seems to listen to Zaranth more than Ramoth, which amuses the Benden Weyrleader.

They both go over the sequence of events, of learning the telekinetic "motion" and Ramoth doing a split-second time-and-distance hop to push the last cat away from killing Golanth. (Who yelled about timing it because "Greens don't know the mechanics of timing it without guidance," the narrative tells us. Bullshit, says I, because they always talk down about greens, but there's no evidence to back up my assertion.)

The two have an extended cry over what could have happened today with the attack, and then the two of them get down to the question of dragon abilities.

> "The theory has always been that, if we knew the time, we could forestall a--a fatal--accident," he said in a low, shaky voice, reaching for her hand. "Like Moreta's death."  
>  "Theory," she said with a derisive shrug. She sipped slowly from the cup of water, willing her body to stop shaking. [Golanth's rider] hadn't died because Golanth hadn't died. Golanth hadn't died because Ramoth had prevented it.  
>  **It isn't theory,** Ramoth said, her mental tone tart, **I timed it to the exact moment. Golanth showed me just how he had saved [his rider] and himself from being crushed by the tsunami wave. He was most resourceful to act on his own initiative. He learned something important that day and was too tired when he got back to Landing to tell even me. Today, Zaranth showed us how to push without touching. I admit that I had never thought greens could do something so unusual. I saw how she did it. Very clever of her. We two taught the others. But it was I who timed it to save Golanth from that last feline. Only I could have done that.**  
>  Lessa managed a shaky little laugh. **Only you, my dearest.**

Ruth was part of the fighting force, we were told in a part that I skipped over quoting, so not really, Ramoth.

> **I do admit that today I learned something from a green dragon.** Ramoth sounded as chagrined as her rider had ever heard her. **I have told the others what Zaranth showed me how to do, how she pushed the felines away,** she added calmly. **It is a useful skill for all to know.**

Which leads into a discussion of AIVAS's confusion as to why the dragons had not manifested the third tele-skill they were supposed to have, and the logical conclusion that we've already arrived at - a sufficiently convinced dragon (or wing thereof) with telekinetic powers could theoretically divert a cosmic object away from planetary impact.

I do want to know, though, when the first organized expedition to find and prevent Moreta's death will be. There's enough records to make a good guess as to the when, and a rider deposited at the beginning of the appropriate Pass could probably do some amount of jumping to narrow the field of possibilities and then land at a spot where they could leave records for another rider as to the appropriate day and go from there. But I am still thinking of this time travel item as something more than a useful deus ex machina and as a thing that should/would be used more.

Plot continues as Tai wakes up and Manora gives her the skinny on what's going on. Tai follows the same line of reasoning and remembrance about why the AI was disappointed, and for once, we finally get a thought about why time travel isn't used more than it is, from Manora.

> "I believe that is the paradox of timing it. [The Benden Weyrleader] said something about causality. The beast had aimed, jumped, and even by timing back, Ramoth could only make the most infinitesimal alteration in the second she had, but she deflected a lethal blow. I gather that there was so much going on at that moment it is miraculous she managed what she did. And this started with a dislike of trundlebugs?"

I think this is the first mention, in all of these books, that there are rules regarding time travel and limits to the amount of monkeying around you can do. Being dragonriders, I suspect this knowledge was gathered by fatal weyrling accidents. But at least there's the implication that there are limits and rules and that some dragonriders may even know them.

_[They won't be developed, though. In the next author's books, an the collaborations that follow, everyone makes it a point to hammer on the idea that "you can't break time", and therefore any action that might have prevented an observed disaster can't happen, because if the disaster had been prevented, it wouldn't have been observed, and thus, because it was observed, it couldn't have been prevented, and will these pesky commenters please stop asking sensible questions about time travel, I just want to write these plots. But time travel is going to become even more intrinsically wrapped up in the next author's stories, but without any corresponding increase in explanation of what the time rules are and how they apply to everything. Because there are several spots along the way where unobserved but assumed actions happen, and it turns out the assumptions were wrong and things can have a better outcome, because they were unobserved, and therefore there's wiggle room for the timeline to be set as it always has been.]_

Mirrim also gets mentioned, because she apparently can't let the matter of the pelts go:

> "Oh, yes, the pelts. Mirrim mentioned those," and somehow Manora implied that, although Mirrim might be been talking a lot, Manora was not the sort of person who heeded gossip. Tai felt a surge of gratitude for Manora.

I almost have to interpret this as Manora putting on an act for Tai, because as headwoman, I would expect Manora to know just about every bit of gossip there was to know. I think her judgment would be on whether she felt it was worth validating or repeating, not on whether she heeded it. Manora has repeatedly been savvy to interpersonal relationships, though, so she could probably figure out from what Mirrim said that Tai wouldn't benefit from hearing any of it.

Since Tai has been down, significant time has passed, which makes her panic because she was supposed to be at the council meeting and convincing others to support the astronomer idea. Manora suggests she's already done more than enough to make everything interesting. Time passes, and Lessa shares some regrets with her headwoman.

> "I have never been much of a mothering person," Lessa admitted quietly to Manora when they shared a pot of klah.  
>  "Why should you have been?" Manora asked mildly. "With you neck deep in Weyr business that only you could manage and every woman quite happy to take care of him? A much more sensible custom than what goes on in holds, Lady Lessa," Manora replied, "especially for as lively a lad as [her son]."

Wait, what now? The custom of communal raising in the Weyr is more sensible than...the fostering of children to be raised in different households? Is it that Manora feels the day care of the Weyr is better? Or that career-focused women in Weyrs can do better work by not having to take time to raise their children? I could use some clarification here, but none is forthcoming.

Instead, we go outside, where dragons are keeping vigil over the rest and recovery of the two dragons, and Lessa and Ramoth replay the events again, with some amount of green-shaming, and Ramoth comes to the conclusion that the dragons all need practice at this new technique of theirs.

That's a long segment. We'll pick up next week with the council meeting.


	13. Ramifications

Last time, a night spent under the stars turned into an all-out brawl between Zaranth, Golanth, their riders, and a horde of big cats. Zaranth taught the rest of the dragons their telekinesis to get them to help fling the cats away, and Ramoth was able to deflect a killing blow through a snap amount of timing it. All four are resting up as we go to the meeting of the Council, which has much to discuss.

**The Skies of Pern, Part 4, Segments II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI: Content Notes: Internalized Ableism, Toxic Masculinity, Sexism,**

(Telgar Hold, 3.1.31)

Lessa stays the viewpoint character while she and her mate prepare for the suddenly very full council meeting, having to discuss an attack on the Printer Hall, a confirmation of a new Lord Holder, a different attack on dragons, and the proposal to make the Dragonriders of Pern into the Astronomers of Pern. There's a nice detail about the "Telgar shield of white, bright red, and medium blue" to remind us that heraldry is still very much alive and well in this world.

Larad gets the elevator version of what happened, and Lessa stresses that the knowledge that has been used to heal everyone has a significant AIVAS component to it, so that anyone listening would get the hint. Lessa also notes the dragons have a significant color improvement to themselves, and is as gracious as she can manage when Larad's wife, Lady Dulsay, suggests that it's a burden to be at the council meeting instead of taking care of her son.

Also let slip, in a discussion of how Lord Sangel, _all his sons_ , as well as several others of his line, all died in a plague, is that the Healer Hall has and has been using vaccinations! Presumably not in quite the same way they figured it out in Moreta, but that's still a significant advance in medicine.

When the local-to-Telgar Weyrleaders arrive, Lessa asks if Larad and Dulsay have met them.

> "Oh, yes. They arrived the very next day," and Lessa was surprised to see Lady Dulsay blush. "Most respectful to let us know how the Weyrleadership had been decided."  
>  "Good of them to be prompt to introduce themselves," Lessa said, suppressing a desire to grin. Why was it that holders were invariably embarrassed by mating flights? It wasn't as if Dulsay and Larad hadn't been very much attached to each other when they had formally wed.

As a characterization bit, this is useful for showing how much Lessa had internalized dragonrider values in the decades since she came to the Weyr from her hold. I don't think it's quite as nice, though, that it suggests dragonrider values don't think all that hard about even the obvious consequences of their actions. Everything we've been told so far about Hold culture mirrors a lot of what Latin Chtistendom's values were. They're focused on making sure the Bloodlines stay (relatively) pure, that marriages are to political advantage, and that property rights can easily and cleanly be passed on to the next generation of nobles. To achieve this, sex has to be heavily regulated and controlled. (Which is what Dunca's function was at the Healer Hall - a chaperone to try and make sure the marriage-eligible daughters of Holders didn't become ineligible by having a fling with a passing Harper.) Right next door, however, are the anarchic hedonists that they pay tribute to. Dragonriders own no property (at least, while they're in active service), have a small amount of military ranking as their social structure, and every so often, as the lusts of themselves or their dragons consume them, they participate in free sex with no regard to rank or Bloodline. They even decide who is in charge by sex.

Furthermore, there's a high probability that the holders have experienced those powerful sexual urges by proxy thanks to being close enough to a mating flight flying overhead. If they extrapolate that dragons and/or riders feel like that much of the time, you can imagine what a Holder might conclude is what goes on in a Weyr much of the time. And that's without knowing whether the new Weyrleaders were being deliberately graphic to induce embarrassment in the prudes or not. Even people who know the mechanics of sex, and may have even had a significant portion of it themselves might be embarrassed if they heard or saw something pornographic (or a sex act) in a public. Or if they were suddenly all-consumed with lust, and when they came back to themselves, they were naked in a field and had very clearly had sex with whomever had been nearest to them at the time the lust started. So there are lots of reasons to be embarrassed. _[One more that I can think of at this point is that it's extremely bad form to involve people who haven't consented to your kink, and discussing the finer points of the sex that made you the Weyrleaders definitely counts as bringing other people who haven't consented into your kink. And it makes you an asshole if you did it because you wanted to see the vanilla folks squirm with discomfort about it.]_

The meeting itself gets underway fairly easily, but Toric is immediately ready to try and disrupt it by claiming he got no news of the attacks by the felines. Nobody wants to back him up on this complaint, and so he sits down. Larad is ready to start the agenda with the matter of confirming a new Holder at Southern Boll, but Kashman, the Lord where the Printer Hall is situated, wants to discuss the "anarchic behavior[...]of Lord Jaxom, Weyrleader N'ton, and Masterprinter Tagetarl who arbitrarily exiled twelve people alleged to be Abominators" first. Groghe reminds everyone present about what they've already agreed to, but it takes Sebell projecting his voice above the brewing argument before anyone feels like paying attention. Toric tries to get out of having to follow the agenda, but he doesn't have as many allies as he thinks.

> "Why don't you just agree to the girl and let us get to the **real** issues?" Toric demanded.  
>  "But she's a woman!" Kashman protested. "There hasn't been a Lady Holder, except in a temporary capacity for..."  
>  "Not since Lady Sicca ran Ista," Groghe said. "My grandfather had great respect for **her**. For that matter, all of us here, bar you who are new come to the Council honors," and Groghe emphasized that, "know that Lady Marella's been running Boll for the past five Turns since Sangel began to deteriorate. Lady Janissian has been her steward and she certainly proved her worth during the Fireball Flood. Those cousins of hers removed themselves and their belongings to high ground and stayed there without lifting a finger. Neither of them should hold."  
>  "For that matter," Lessa said, "Emily Boll held those lands in her own right. As I see it, that Holdership has come full circle and about time."  
>  Lady Dulsay, Adrea, Master Ballora, and Palla were bold enough to second her.

Bargen of High Reaches (who has turned out to be Lord post-Fax after all) insists on the Council considering other male relatives of Sangel's, but each of them is found deficient nearly immediately, and Toric irritably asks for a vote so they can get on with the meeting. While the votes are being cast and collected, we learn something we've always suspected, but hasn't actually been confirmed until now.

> "Holding began with Paul Benden. There's nothing wrong with Fort's Bloodline. But that form of inheritance is not in the Charter, you know."  
>  [The Benden Weyrleader] regarded [Lessa] in mild surprise. "No, actually, it isn't. Holders and all those traditions came later."

And those traditions managed to not only come in conflict with the Charter, they buried that Charter until it was unearthed with the AI. For as much as this timeline would like you to believe that the Charter has always been with Pern, there's only a few ways where the vassalage system could have grown out of the Randian pastoral paradise envisioned by the colonists. Suppression of said Charter is one of the easiest.

Janissian is confirmed and invited to sit at the table, at a gathering hosted by Larad. How much Thella must be fuming from the afterlife, and even more so that there was an installed Lady Holder within the living memory of the Council members, by the brother that she was passed over for. Thella should have had her hearing, by rights, and at least have been formally removed from consideration for some reason, rather than been told "lol no, no girls allowed." because there were other men in the line that would have had precedence over Janissian by rights of primogeniture. _[There are plenty of reasons why Thella should not have been confirmed, but any one of those reasons should have been the reason why, rather than "no girls", because there's very clearly a robust tradition of girls and women holding, even if it's not a very frequent action for them to do.]_

Of course, if any of Sangel's sons had survived, this conversation would not be happening, because then they could just confirm him, regardless of how good an administrator he would be, because son and Bloodlines.

I hope Janissian manages to pass her Holdership to her daughter.

Then the meeting turns to the business at the Printer Hall, and Kashman wants to know why the accused were not brought to him for justice. Lytol and Sebell remind him that Crafthalls are autonomous, and since the offense happened in a Crafthall, they do not have to defer to the local Lord Holder. Kashman wonders how people from so very far away were in the right place to pass judgment, which betrays that Kashman doesn't know enough about fire-lizard messages, yet. _[The commenters point out that Kashman is young and has grown up in the era of the fire-lizard, and so he should have more of a clue about how all of this works, instead of being completely out of the loop, but maybe the fire-lizards haven't gotten out his way because more important people have been demanding the entire available supply.]_ Bargen closes the rhetorical door in Kashman's face by pointing out the precedent already in place and that the correct procedure was followed for exile, then requests to move on to the topic of keeping the skies clear. The Benden Weyrleader begins to present the recommendations, to Toric's (and a few others) outrage at being taxed more, before the dragons outside roar and restore order that way. Fandarel points out his Hall can't make the telescopes needed, but withdraws his concern when told they'll use the ones in the Catherine Caves. Jaxom and Larad point out they've already started the work on building their observatory spots, the entire council is abuzz about the Western Continent site, and the Benden Weyrleader sets Toric up to ask all the right questions about how the dragonriders will be able to support themselves, either with holds or by joining the Star Hall, in the After, and that lets the Benden Weyrleader point out that the dragons have a new tool in their box that they can use to divert objects that get too close to Pern for comfort. The rest of the council votes to approve and supply the idea, much to Toric's aggravation. The rest of the segment is Toric wandering the grounds for an arranged meeting with Dorse that never happens, but Fifth is there and stands in his place. We learn that Toric is also curious about the circumstances of the deaths of Robinton and AIVAS, but the narrative cuts away to Honshu without revealing any details of the meeting.

_[As was noted in the comments to one of the earlier posts, the placement of the observatories makes no sense if what you want are clear skies, a lack of light pollution, and the least amount of atmospheric interference that you can manage so that you can get the clearest possible pictures. Honshu makes sense, clearly, and Landing would be a given, but Ruatha is definitely not in a good place, and unless they decide to build very high, the Western Continent isn't going to be a good site, either. The Weyrs would be the best places for observatories, because they fit the criteria sought. Plus, even though we wont' get into it, the Fiona and Xhinna books will disclose to us that the Western Continent is full up of more of Ted Tubberman's sentient and dragon-hating cats, along with supercharged and extra vicious tunnel snakes, to the point where the small settlement that's there might have some significant amount of trouble keeping itself safe and supplied, even with dragons. But they won't find that out, because the events of this book won't talk about it at all.]_

Thankfully, it's Tai (3.01.31) recovering that they're focusing on, and Tai is getting significantly annoyed that everyone keeps treating her like she can't do anything. However, she's getting taken on a tour to see everyone else (not by walking herself, which would be too much strain, but being carried from place to place), in the order of Golanth's rider, who seems cheered by her presence, Golanth, who still has a lot of healing to do, and Zaranth, who took the lightest damage and is healing very well. The other people there cheerfully admit that they're taking Tai on the tour because both Golanth and his rider will believe Tai if she says that she's seen the other and they're getting stronger and recovering, which is an important part of both of them getting stronger and recovering. Her tour complete, Tai sits at the bronze rider's side while the narrative shifts over to other places.

As it turns out, not every dragon has the knack for telekinesis, and those that do definitely lack the fine control needed to move things safely by themselves. In pairs they seem to be able to exert the necessary control, but it's essentially learning how to cut paper into art when your life has been swinging sledgehammers. Plenty of not-dragonriders are hard at work setting up the new observatory sites. Plenty of others are trying to assemble everything they know about dragons. When the narrative hops back to Honshu, the focus is still on healing the dragons and riders.

Eventually Tai hits her limit of peopleing and heads out to be by herself for a time, slipping away from the very attentive medics while the other rider and dragon sleep. Her choice of a swim means a pod of dolphins comes by and clicks and plays and asks questions and eventually surround Tai as she sleeps in the ocean. When she comes back, she discovers Golanth's rider out of bed and trying to get to his dragon. Eventually, and with help from Zaranth, Tai helps undo the stitches holding Golanth's eye closed, so it will stop itching. And, as it turns out, Golanth has a small amount of sight in the damaged eye, which makes his rider, and Tai, weep with joy. Zaranth helps deposit the two back into bed, so they don't have to walk all the way back, and the two of them talk about Tai's adventure and have a peaceful sleep together. _[Even though, by prematurely opening the stitches, they may have robbed Golanth of recovering more of his eyesight by letting it heal more before exposing it to work and light. But, as we'll find out, there are more than enough injuries sustained on both ends that neither dragon nor rider can expect to ever be fit for Threadfighting duty again.]_

At least, until they get discovered, but right before that, there's the first time we see on page that someone offers Tai a choice. I don't know if it's because the Honshu Weyrholder is now "a far cry from the dashing, blithe, youthful Benden Wingleader" due to his injuries, or that he's finally realizing what's gone on in Tai's life about choosing, and the ways he's also contributed to her trauma and their injuries, but finally, he asks her consent.

> "I'm going to insist that we occupy this room from now on. It's big enough so you won't be bashing into me. You're a quiet sleeper anyway. I don't think you moved all night."  
>  "They have to be somewhere," they heard Keita shouting.  
>  "That is, if it's your choice, Tai?"  
>  For a split second--wanting to throw her arms about him in an excess of relief--he didn't know where it was safe to embrace him. So she demurely rubbed her head against his left shoulder. "I choose. I choose you in any condition and any way I get to choose you."

I'm not fully sure this is a free choice, because Tai still has trauma to work through, but this is definitely the most consensual the Honshu Weyrholder, or any other dragonrider, for that matter, has been about whether or not their mates get to choose the relationship. It doesn't erase the previous terrible everything, but it could be, with a lot of work, the foundation of a good relationship.

_[There's also the implication that because the Son of the Benden Weyrleaders has lost his good looks and most of his bodily ability, that he really should lock up Tai while she's still affectionate for him, and additionally, that he's asking because he's been maimed and otherwise lost the good looks that he's been able to trade on before. The narrative is telling us that Mirrim is right about him, even though it wants us to believe she's completely wrong, because nobody can admit that Mirrim is right or the universe would unravel. But Mirrim is right and has been right about how the Son of the Benden Weyrleaders is shallow, trades on his good looks, and uses his bronze rider status and physical strength to get what he wants, rather than asking and respecting consent.]_

There's a little more of affection and application of healing salves and suggestions that the Honshu Weyrholder get out and swim some himself, and a short bit of how being telekinetically moved by the dragons is much more teleportation rather than telekinetics, but essentially, it's happy making up time for those two/four.

Which means the narrative can move forward and return to the subject that it started with - Shankolin, son of Norist, who now has the backing of Toric to go observe and plan the destruction of the Admin building at Landing. Which is a terrible idea if you're Toric, but it's also possible that Toric has been backing and bankrolling the faction since its inception, through intermediaries such as Dorse. If there's ever evidence that can be traced back to Toric, like the notes that he's personally written to get Shankolin in to see the remains of AIVAS, he's sunk as a Lord, and likely on his way to exile as well. But Toric's hat seems to be having ambitions that are way beyond his ability to execute, as well as routinely thinking himself the smartest in the room.

Shankolin, as he passes by Monaco Bay, dismisses the story of dolphins ringing the bell due to his inland upbringing. As if the narrative needed to establish again that he's pretty resistant to new ideas. Arriving at Landing, he meets with his contact, who turns out to be Master Esselin, and Toric is apparently calling in favors with Esselin to get him to help Shankolin. Esselin destroys and buries the note Shankolin gave him from Toric and leads the Luddite leader into the AIVAS chamber, even as Shankolin recoils from things like lights that come on at dawn and an archive full of books. He's plotting explosive destruction for the whole complex when he arrives at the AIVAS chamber and strides over the threshold to see the terminated computer.

> That was as far as Shankolin got. From the opposite wall of the chamber two narrow shafts of light struck him on the chest at heart height. He was dead before he fell backward.

Not that we don't appreciate a good deus ex machina, but praytell, if AIVAS is deactivated, then who's running an upgraded defense protocol that can recognize someone from before and apply lethal force? Thankfully, after Lytol and D'ram arrive to see what happened, they speculate that AIVAS didn't fully turn itself off, and that things like the self-defense protocols were still active, and recognized Shankolin as a threat. Pinch is notified and comes to confirm the death.

> Pinch hoped it took a long while before Lord Toric realized that Fifth, too, was no longer available. Now, if he could just find Fourth and neutralize her, they might forget about Abominators.  
>  Esselin did not recover from the shock he had received and died a few days later of a hemorrhage in the brain. Or so the Healer at Landing said. The incident was forgotten as quickly as possible and Tunge soon resumed his duty of keeping the Aivas Chamber neat and tidy.

And thank you for that chilling reminder of how easy it is for Our Heroes to be every bit as ruthless as their opponents. Since Pinch knows that Toric is involved, I'm surprised he hasn't met a convenient end, like Esselin did. No doubt the Healer responsible did everything he could to save the Master who had been caught assisting an enemy of Pern. Brrrr.

The narrative leaves us on that beat to go back to Honshu, where a smart carpenter suggests building a ramp for Golanth to get up and down from while his wing continues to not be functional, and there's a laugh about asking how much the dragon weighs. The ramp gets built, and in the noise of that, people have enlarged the beasthold to be a big enough weyr for Golanth to get in away from the rain, and that triggers the realization in his rider that their days of being dragonriders are over, and had been since the attack. And the realization that a grounded Golanth won't be able to mate, either. The Benden Weyrleaders, arriving from conveniently off-screen, point out the problem of getting Golanth aloft is easily solvable when you have telekinetic dragons. Which allows him to squelch the bad mood and enjoy his dragon's joy. Tai also reaffirms her choosing of the rider, to put the cherry on top of this sundae.

And the narrative flits away again to Southern Hold (3.23.31), because Toric is still a loose end. And it's receiving a shipment of canines from a handler that identifies himself as Pinch. Said canines are muzzled, but also trained to hand and voice signals. Toric thinks they'll be great to have his sons train, and maybe keep a pair for himself as guard dogs. And then ruminates, after a Runner tells him there's no messages for him, about how Fifth kept his organization too secret to be discovered, how Dorse was worth every bit of his salary to cause trouble, that Kashman might be a useful ally against Jaxom, and that Esselin hasn't given him any other messages.

He then notices Fourth is here to meet with him, and Pinch observes the two of them talking, stays a bit to help the sons train the dogs, then leaves instructions and sketches with Sintary before returning to the Harper Hall.

_[And so, with actual evidence that he's collaborating with the conspirators and attempting to interfere with the good order and operation of the planet and its Crafts, Pinch just leaves instructions and goes back to the Hall. By this point, there should be more than enough evidence to implicate or convict Toric of some sort of Charter or tradition violation, or even of being part of the conspiracy itself, and therefore worthy of being exiled, should a sufficient court convene around him and convict him of those offenses. Toric should have long since been offed before this, but his continued survival and retention of power makes no sense, and the narrative doesn't and won't offer any sort of higher justification as to why he's allowed to stay where he is.]_

Back to Honshu, where the bronze rider seems to be settling in well...when he's not thinking about all the things he can't do now.

> The facts that he would never lead a wing again and that Golanth might never fly Zaranth. **That** he didn't like--especially since Zaranth was a young dragon and would need a good male to keep her company. He, [bronze rider], certainly didn't wish to share Tai with another rider--any other male. She enjoyed being with him now, relaxed, eager, and he wasn't going to have her response to him destroyed by some heavy-handed rider with no sensitivity for her marvelous, intricate personality.

I don't know whether to classify this as progress or not. He seems to have finally made it to the spot where he considers consent to be important, as well as the part where both partners should enjoy themselves, but he's still thinking of Tai as his to share or not share as he decides, which is still very wrong and makes me worry what he'll be like if Tai and/or Zaranth take a fancy or want a fling with someone else. Not that the author or the narrative would allow it, since Tai is supposed to be the reward received for leveling up his humanity to his point. _[Or as the consolation prize for his injuries and subsequent disability.]_

The bronze rider does find inspiration from other sources, though.

> Abruptly, another revelation occurred to him. Lytol, with his scarred and seamed face! **He** has been dragonless for Turns, ever since his brown Larth has died in a routine training flight at Benden: a training flight during which R'gul had allowed his dragon the chance to chew firestone and flame. Only Larth had caught flame in the face and so had Lytol. The dragon had managed to land his gravely wounded rider with the last breath in him. That should have been the end of the rider, as a person--a dragonless man.  
>  Tradition said dragonless riders suicided rather than live without their dragon. But Lytol had defied that convention and had become far more than a dragonrider. He had been a Lord Holder for Jaxom's minority; he had then turned his hand to help Master Robinton and D'ram to manage Landing as a major Hold to the satisfaction of everyone involved. Now, Lytol and D'ram, in addition to bearing blind Wansor company, had accepted yet another role for which they were unusually qualified: as wise consultants for the complex society of the planet. Briefly [he] wondered, even as his soul cringed at the thought: would he have had the courage to build a new life-lives, in fact--as Lytol had done, if Golanth had succumbed to his injuries?  
>  [He] gave a snort of disgust for his self-absorption. The time he had wasted. As Tai had said, there would be a way. Lytol had made several, and the example of the man's quiet heroism rebuked him.

Okay, almost inspiration. Or what passes for inspiration when filtered heavily through toxic masculinity, anyway. I'd bet the bronze rider would get a very different picture if he actually talked to Lytol about all of it. But he has to get over himself first, as when he has a setback later on, this is how his thought process goes:

> "I forgot the cane," he said through clenched teeth. The euphoria of his ride here on Golanth instantly dissipated. He glanced across the sands to the Hold, a long walk for a man with a lame leg. He did **not** want to fall on his face in front of Lytol or D'ram. How humiliating that would be. He was still incapacitated. His dragon was still injured. He would never again be what he had once been: the carefree self-indulgent bronze Wingleader from Benden Weyr!

So there's still a lot of work to be done about accepting who you are now.

Before he has to think too hard about all of it, though, a set of dragons arrive to practice their lifting of Golanth and to see if he can handle the hyperspace hop. Which he can. And then we get Lessa reflecting on her son's life, and the terrible possibility that it might have ended with the attack, and a short conversation with the Benden Weyrleader about the Luddite faction, where we hear yet more of how Our Heroes think about them.

> "Such people are afraid of what they don't understand, won't understand. So they pretend to despise and reject it since they can't and won't understand. They retaliate by defiance and witless destruction. And claim they're acting on behalf of people and for reasons those people don't understand either. It may just be a sign of our changing times. And life on our planet is indeed changing."  
>  "For the better?" she murmured.  
>  He tipped her head up with one finger and lightly kissed her lips. "Definitely for the better."

And if you're part of the upper economic stratum, yeah, things are getting better on Pern. But there's all those people who _aren't_ , and they can see how new technologies can be harnessed to enslave them even further. Those people aren't getting any consideration at all, and it's unsurprising that they turn to destruction as a way of getting their voices heard. It doesn't work, with the deck so stacked against them, but it's one way of trying. I think the next several waves will not be about destruction but subversion. Perhaps a sympathetic Printer will run off a few copies of the equivalent of the 95 Theses and let them spread around. Maybe the Runners will join in as soon as they find out that radio will replace them fairly soon. There are plenty of people who might join up because they see the writing on the wall and they're tired of enriching the few. I'm waiting for the book where the general population of Pern is in open rebellion.

After this reflection, the bronze rider and his dragon are conveyed to Cove Hold by telekinesis. It turns out that the dragon can handle the hyperspace part by himself at least, although the dismount of the rider is pretty rough, and the aforementioned long walk, where he's supported by Tai in an unobtrusive way. Which helps him realize the way he is going to have to order his life now - with support from others. The components for remote control of the Honshu telescope are ready for transport, and the bronze rider asks if he can properly study astronomy so as to have work to do at Honshu for the rest of the Fall and After. Then there's a long explanation to Erragon and Wansor about dragon telekinesis and the suspicion that AIVAS wanted the dragons to push the wandering planet out of orbit, and the possibility that the cometary disaster could have been averted with a push to change its own orbit before impact. (Time-traveling dragons, we note, could avert the whole thing, but I guess we're supposed to not question what would happen if they did do any of the things they've speculated about changing in history.) They ask for a northern array of weather satellites to help feed telemetry to the Yokohama, and point out that dragons can now lift things into orbit without an issue and can help position them, at least for the fifteen minutes they can hold their breath. And that's the end of the book.

So we're rapidly headed toward a story of Schizo Tech kind of world, where the peasants have to work the ground by hand and the elites will have radio technology and weather satellites at their disposal. I can't see that diminishing the appeal of the Luddite faction any, especially as the disparities become more obvious.

Also, we're hurtling pretty close to the point where stories about dragonriders are going to lose their appeal. There won't be any more Thread, it's unlikely dragons are going to corner the market on transport, and astronomy is only exciting when there's something bearing down on the planet. But even then, the dragons can just move it away. What happens now?

There's apparently one more short story before we get to that answer. _[For the record, the answer is, rather than continue in the vein of stories about what After is going to be like and the preparations for it, we instead jump back to a previously unexplored time period with new characters, old plots, and the ever-constant threat of Thread on the horizon. Just so that we don't have to deal with politics or ever own up to the possibility that the trajectory Pern is on right now is not actually going to be a universal good for everyone, and that a lot of social and political upheaval is definitely on the horizon for everyone.]_


End file.
